Japan Powers Up: Market Liberalization Sparks Interest

Japan’s power market is creating a stir. Having faced natural disasters, global energy crises and ever more extreme periods of weather, the world’s third-largest liberalized power market has had to contend with some almighty challenges in recent years, and yet it has still piqued the interest of foreign investors. The long process of restarting Japan’s nuclear fleet, completely shuttered after the Fukushima disaster, has dragged on, and with little available land, utility-scale renewables have traditionally struggled to gain a foothold. To fill the energy void, the resource-poor nation has had to import coal, gas and oil to fuel its power plants. Yet the arrival of energy-intensive data centers and semiconductor manufacturing plants mean power demand is once again on the rise, and with it new opportunities for energy installations. On today’s show, Tom is joined by two analysts from BNEF’s Global Power Markets Team, Mariko O’Neil and Yumi Kim, to discuss key findings from the report “Japan Power Market Outlook 2H 2024: Tailwinds Ahead”.

Complementary BNEF research on the trends driving the transition to a lower-carbon economy can be found at BNEF<GO> on the Bloomberg Terminal or on bnef.com

Links to research notes from this episode:

Japan Power Market Outlook 2H 2024: Tailwinds Ahead - https://www.bnef.com/insights/34981

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