Energy

A startup that’s friendly to both the environment and your wallet is two steps away from a $1 million prize. Renewable-energy company Looop Inc., which says it can slash household electricity costs to a third of what customers pay now, advanced to the final rounds of Startup World Cup 2020 in Tokyo on Thursday.

Japan's Mitsubishi Corp. and Chubu Electric Power were selected as preferred buyers for Dutch energy company Eneco, as the partners seek know-how on downstream distribution of renewable power in Europe -- expertise that also could be applied in the U.S. or Asia.

A biomass power generation company in southern Japan has begun pilot operation of a furnace that burns bamboo, addressing a drawback that made the wood unsuitable as a fuel.

A prototype of the Fugaku supercomputer has been rated the best in the world in terms of energy efficiency, according to its developers, Fujitsu Ltd. and research institute Riken.

After recent typhoons ravaged the nation’s power grid and disrupted services to almost 1.4 million customers, the government is encouraging homeowners to invest in storage systems, seeking to marry batteries with existing rooftop solar capacity to create backup electricity networks.

Japan's leading power provider took its first major step in developing Asia's promising green-energy market with the completion of Taiwan's first commercial offshore wind farm.

Japan's northeastern prefecture of Fukushima, devastated during the 2011 earthquake and nuclear disaster, is looking to transform itself into a renewable energy hub.

Japanese companies have a reputation for resisting change. Utilities, in Japan and other countries, are often seen as especially conservative and uninventive. But Japan's energy companies are now breaking away from this stereotype, as deregulation reorders the energy sector; advances in energy technology and climate concerns disrupt business as usual; and the aftereffects of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster continue to reverberate.

Japanese trading house Itochu will partner with BYD, China's leading producer of electric cars, on a venture that gives automotive batteries new life as storage for renewable energy.

A project to install electric vehicle charging infrastructure at retail stores, such as supermarkets, to is set to get underway.