Chugoku Electric Power Co., Electric Power Development Co. and the Japanese government will jointly develop a coal-fired power plant that uses less polluting generation technology, the Nikkei newspaper said.
The two utilities will jointly start building a 170- megawatt prototype plant that uses fuel-cell technology in the year ending March 2013, the Nikkei reported, without saying how it got the information. The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry will cover one-third of the costs, which may exceed 100 billion yen ($1.3 billion), according to the newspaper.