TotalEnergies has started up commercial operation of a 51-megawatt (MW) solar power plant located in Tsu, Mie Prefecture, Japan. Built in 2 years, the Haze power plant is operated with nearly 100,000 high-efficiency solar panels and will provide enough clean and reliable electricity to serve nearly 20,000 households.
The Fair Trade Commission notified three regional utilities that it plans to slap them with a surcharge of about 100 billion yen ($737 million) over suspicions they formed cartels that ended competition for lucrative corporate customers.
The companies entered the electricity retail market after it was liberalized in 2000, but are finding themselves unable to withstand the recent sharp rise in fuel prices.