Nippon Paper Industries Co. plans to build a 100-megawatt coal-fired thermal power plant at its paper-pulp factory in Akita Prefecture, aiming to start operation in around 2017 for commercial power sales. The company will invest tens of billions of yen in the power plant expected to burn not only coal but also timber from forest thinning.

In view of a shrinking paper market in Japan, the company intends to expand its annual energy sales to more than JPY 50 billion as Japan completely liberalizes retail power sales as early as 2016. The company also plans to construct a thermal power plant in Miyagi Prefecture and cooperate with trading house Mitsubishi Corp. and Chubu Electric Power Co.

in building a coal-fired power plant in Shizuoka Prefecture. In 2015, it expects to launch a large photovoltaic power plant in cooperation with Mitsubishi in Tokushima Prefecture and start operation of a biomass power plant in Kumamoto Prefecture. The company now has total power generation capacity of 1.8 gigawatts primarily for its own paper-pulp factories.

Among them, Oji Holdings Corp. has announced a plan to found an electric power generation company jointly with Itochu Enex Co. in January.