Tokyo (AsiaNews / Agencies) - According to the Nikkei business daily, the major Russian energy companies will supply electricity to the island of Hokkaido from 2025. The news was confirmed by Alexey Kaplun, director general of the Rao Energy System of East, the biggest energy company in eastern Russia, in an interview with the Japanese newspaper.
Since February
the Rao Energy
System of East and Inter Rao have been in
negotiations with Japan Softbank
Corp and Mitsui &
co. for the export of 4 gigawatts of electricity to Japan starting in 2025.
The energy produced
from hydropower and fossil fuel
plants on Sakhalin island will arrive in Hokkaido through underwater
cables and will cost Tokyo about 5.68 billion
dollars.
The Fukushima disaster in 2011 and the subsequent closure of nuclear power plants have forced the Japanese government and national energy
companies to seek alternative
energy sources abroad. Between the end of April and beginning of
May, Prime Minister Shinzo
Abe led
a diplomatic tour that took in Russia, Turkey and Saudi
Arabia, to weave new energy relationships with the presidents
of their respective countries. On that occasion, the Russian President,
Vladimir Putin and Japanese head of state relaunched diplomatic
negotiations on the sovereignty of the southern Kurile Islands, a controversy that had led to a freeze in
relations between the two countries dating back to the end of World War II.