Japan: Japan power generator JERA reorganizes managerial ranks to tackle challenges

Japan’s biggest power generator JERA has said it had promoted two vice presidents to its top posts and tasked them with securing stable energy supplies and decarbonization.

JERA, a joint venture between Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings and Chubu Electric said Vice President Hisahide Okuda is to become CEO and Chief Operating Officer, while Vice President Yukio Kani would become global chief executive, with effect from April 1, 2023.

Toshihiro Sano, who serves as JERA Chairman, and Satoshi Onoda, JERA’s President, would become directors.

“A strong management execution system was necessary” to secure a stable energy supply and the greater need for decarbonization, Sano told a news briefing, adding that the change was also aimed at JERA becoming a global energy company.

Kani said JERA, one of the world’s biggest buyers of liquefied natural gas (LNG), wants to leverage its procurement capabilities to build a value chain spanning gas field development, liquefaction, transportation, LNG terminals and gas-fired power plants.

“The value chain will play an insurance role for Japan that can respond to unforeseen circumstances,” he said.

JERA aims to develop the three pillars of LNG, renewable energy, hydrogen and ammonia in a bid to provide many supply options to solve energy problems by 2030, Kani said.

It aims to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from its domestic business by 60% or more by 2035 versus 2013 levels, mainly by using ammonia and hydrogen as a fuel for thermal power plants.

“We want to achieve the co-firing rate of 50% or more in the 2030s,” Okuda said.

JERA has no concrete plan for going public now, but it does not rule it out, Kani said.