By Koichi Kuranuki / Yomiuri Shimbun Senior Writer

Chubu Electric Power Co. intends to strengthen its business initiatives to promote resource circulation and enhance infrastructure sustainability. Key pillars of this effort include developing power generation facilities that will use food waste and industrial waste as fuel; reusing clothing; using wood as biofuel to generate power; and managing and operating water and sewage systems.

In the field of waste recycling, the company plans to develop facilities for methane fermentation biogas power generation and waste-to-energy power generation, which will utilize collected food waste, industrial waste and other underutilized resources as fuel, returning energy to local communities.

For clothing reuse, the company has installed unwanted item collection boxes at locations including supermarkets and other commercial facilities in the Chubu area. It has also invested in Ecommit Co., a startup with expertise in clothing reuse. Ecommit has an accumulation of data on sorting, analyzing, reusing and recycling collected clothing, and Chubu Electric expects that this information will be shared with manufacturers so that they can use it to plan products based on the principles of reuse and recycling.

Chubu Electric's forestry-related plans include eventually becoming a supplier of sustainable aviation fuel, which is derived from biomass power generation and domestic timber, as well as of wood-based bioplastics. The company will construct a large-scale sawmill in Hokkaido, with operations scheduled to begin in 2028. To secure timber, which will be needed as a raw material, the company also envisions taking part in forest management in collaboration with entities such as local forestry cooperatives there. The company also aims to engage in forest management in the Chubu area.

The company intends to work with local governments to jointly manage and operate water and sewage systems, which are becoming increasingly difficult to sustain due to factors including declining regional populations. It aims to improve bill collection efficiency using smart electricity meters through investment in DK Corp., which handles water meter reading services.

This business model is inspired by Germany's "Stadtwerke" (city works), which are utilities that operate a wide range of infrastructure services -- such as electricity, gas, water and heating -- in cooperation with local governments. Chubu Electric aims to make infrastructure maintenance and management more sustainable by helping local governments across wide areas provide water and sewage services.

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This article is from The Yomiuri Shimbun. Neither Dow Jones Newswires, MarketWatch, Barron's nor The Wall Street Journal were involved in the creation of this content.

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September 01, 2025 08:01 ET (12:01 GMT)

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