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apan’s major conglomerate Itochu Corporation and one of world’s major electricity company, Electric Power Development Co. Ltd (J. Power), have promised to fully support the construction of the coal-fired Batang power plant in Central Java, which will become not only the most efficient but also cleanest thermal power plant in Southeast Asia.

The commitment was made during a meeting between the executives of the two big companies with President Director of publicly listed coal miner PT Adaro Energy Tbk, Garibaldi Thohir, in Tokyo last week.

The Batang power plant, which will have two generators each with a capacity of 1,000 megawatt (MW), is currently being constructed by PT Bhimasena Power Indonesia (BPI), a joint venture between Adaro and J. Power, each with share ownership of 34 percent, and Itochu with a 32 percent stake.

Eiichi Yonekura, one of a member of the board of senior managing executive officers of Itochu, said in Tokyo on Thursday, last week, that the participation in Southeast Asia’s largest coal-fired power was part of the Japanese conglomerate’s expansion in Indonesia’s power generation business.

He said that Itochu would made anything possible to ensure the US$4.2 billion thermal power project, which had been delayed for nearly four years, would go according to schedules. The Batang power plant will be Itochu’s second power project in Indonesia.

At present, in a partnership, Medco, Japanese electricity firm Kyushu and US geothermal company Ormat, Itochu is also developing three geothermal power plants, with a combined capacity of 320 MW in Sarulla, North Sumatra. The first unit is expected to begin commercial operation in December 2016.

Itochu, one of the most active Japanese business groups in Indonesia, opened its first Indonesian office in Jakarta in 1951. At present, it has over a dozen of business units in the country involved in wide business activities ranging from textile industry, machineries to property. The company is also one of Adaro’s major coal distributors in the world.

Yunekura said Itochu would further expand its business in Indonesia to tap into the growing business opportunity in the Southeast Asian country. There will be no investment limitation for Itochu’s business expansion in Indonesia, now among the most promising market in the world, he said. He, however, said that legal uncertainties remained a big problem for the company’s business expansion agenda.

Meanwhile, Yoshiki Onoi, a member of J. Power’s board of executive managing officers and head of international power business division, said the company was accelerating the engineering works of the Batang power plant to ensure that it could begin its commercial operation on schedule.

He said that more engineers would be dispatched to Indonesia to ensure that the construction of the power plant would be on-time.

He said that the Batang coal-fired power plant would be the showcase of the company’s latest power generation technology called the ultra-supercritical (USC) technology, which is not only able to improve efficiency but also significantly reduce emission, including carbon dioxide and mercury.

With the USC technology, the power plants operate their boilers at temperatures and pressure above the critical point of water, which results an efficiency of above 45 percent.

Onoi said that J. Power had also introduced an advanced anti-pollution technology including the ReACT (Regenerative Activated Coke Technology) dry-type flue gas desulfurization — denitrification system, which can significantly reduce emission of sulfur oxides (Sox) and nitrogen oxides.

Both the USC technology and ReACT technology are currently adopted in J. Power’s Isogo coal-fired thermal power plants located about six kilometers from Yokohama, making it as the world leader in environmental performance.

The use of the clean power technology is part of the Japanese government’s program to reduce the operation of the nuclear power plants following the deadly earthquake and tsunami which hit Fukushima area in March, 2011. Most of the nuclear power plants in the country have been shut down following the natural disaster, which had caused a nuclear accident.

With the use of the new technology, the CO2 emission from the coal-fired power plants can be reduced as low as those from gas-fired power generators.

Adaro’s president Garibaldi Thohir, who is more popularly called Boy, said that the use of the USC technology would be the right option to meet the future electricity need of Indonesia, one of the world’s largest coal producers. He said with the technology, although it will be more costly, Indonesia can fully benefit from its coal resource, while at the same time, it can eliminate their environmental impact.

For Adaro, the Batang power plant is an important part of its expansion into power generation business. Through its subsidiary Adaro Power, Adaro is also building two mine-mouth power plants in South Kalimantan and East Kalimantan.

As a coal producer, the business expansion into coal-fired power plants would the company’s core business in the future.

Adaro Power plans to build more power plants in the future and to make it as a major private power producer in the country. When its power business has generated profits, Power Adaro will be listed in the local stock market, he said about his coal business vision.

Adaro will be the main coal supplier of PLTU Batang, which needs about 8 million tons of the energy source a year. PT Kaltim Prima Coal (KPC), a subsidiary of Indonesia’s largest coal producer PT BUMI Resources will also provide the coal supply for the power plant.

In the Batang power project, BPI builds the ultra-supercritical coal fired power plant under a 25-year build, operate and transfer (BOT) contract. BPI will sell the electricity to state owned electricity company PLN. The first unit is expected to begin commercial operation in June, 2020 and the other one in December, 2020.

The financial closure for the power plant was signed in June, 2016 after being delayed for about four years due land acquisition problem.

The Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC) agreed to provide about $2 billion loan of the total loan of $3.4 billion for BPI. The remainders will come from other Japanese financial institutions, including Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp. and Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJA, as well as two Singaporean entities DBS Bank Ltd. and Overseas Chinese Banking Corp.