Page 10 - AsiaElec Week 31

AsiaElec
NEWS IN BRIEF
AsiaElec
the Daini plant. e estimated cost for dismantling and decontamination will be 280 billion yen ($2.6bn).
TEPCO president Tomoaki Kobayakawa visited Fukushima Governor Masao Uchibori and told him about the decision and the governor asked Kobayakawa to “make safe and steady progress” on the decommissioning.
e utility plans to build an on-site facility to store spent nuclear fuel from the plant, though it has yet to pick a nal disposal site for the fuel, Japanese daily e Mainichi reported.
RENEWABLES
South Korea to build
world’s largest floating
solar power project
South Korea’s Ministry of Trade, Industry, and Energy (MOTIE) has announced for the development of a 2.1GW of oating solar power projects.
A er its completion, the project will be 14 times larger than the world’s current largest oating solar project, a 150MW project under construction in China’s Panji District.
e massive project will be installed atop the Saemangeum Seawall Dyke, the longest man-made dyke, situated on the southwest coast of the Korean Peninsula.
e total investment for the oating solar
power project is KRW4.6 trillion ($38bn). e project will be built in two stages. In the rst stage, a target of 1.2GW is expected to be completed by 2022, and the remaining 900MW is slated to be completed in 2025.
e projects are expected to make a signi cant contribution to the country’s renewable energy plan aiming to secure 30.8GW of solar by 2030.
e project will be able to supply electricity to about 1 million households.
e South Korean government maintains that the oating solar project will not only provide opportunities and vitality to the domestic renewable industry but will also speed up the e orts to meet the government’s 2030 renewable energy target.
Asia’s fourth-largest economy aims for 35% renewable energy generation capacity by 2040. At present, renewable energy accounts for only 8% of South Korea’s energy generation.
Japanese pension fund
to support ADB’s green
projects
e Asian Development Bank (ADB) and Japan’s Government Pension Investment Fund (GPIF) recently formed a partnership to support green project nancing through investments in ADB’s green bonds.
“We are pleased to collaborate with GPIF
on this important initiative that promotes environment-related investments in Asia
and the Paci c and is closely aligned with ADB’s development mandate,” ADB President Takehiko Nakao said.
ADB issues green bonds to nance projects in the Asia and Paci c region that help its developing member countries mitigate greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to the consequences of climate change.
ADB issued its rst green bond in 2015.
It has since issued more than $6 billion equivalent green bonds in various currencies. ADB green bonds provide opportunities for institutional investors, including pension funds and asset managers, to achieve their green mandate.
e green bond investment will help GPIF ful ll its stewardship responsibilities for environment, social, and governance (ESG) investments. GPIF, the largest pension fund in the world in terms of assets under management, can support ADB’s green bond program in a substantial way.
ADB will scale up its support for climate change adaptation and maintain its assistance for mitigation through clean energy and energy e ciency projects and sustainable transport.
Under Strategy 2030, ADB will ensure that 75% of the number of its committed operations will be supporting climate change mitigation and adaptation by 2030. Climate nance from ADB’s own resources will reach $80 billion for 2019–2030.
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Week 31 06 •August•2019