In one of the “biggest breaking stories of 2018” illustrating the ongoing transition from fossil fuels to renewables, a top power plant developer has just announced that it will be pivoting away from coal in favor of sustainable energy.
Japanese energy company Marubeni will no longer be building coal-powered plants. Instead, it will be doubling the sustainable energy capacity of its net power supply from 10% to 20% by 2023.
The conglomerate also plans on reducing its environmental impact by slashing its coal-powered energy of 3GW by half.
According to Japanese newspaper Nikkei, the company plans to avoid job loss by reassigning their employees currently working on coal-related projects to their renewable energy initiatives as they develop.
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“Marubeni Corporation recognizes that climate change is a major issue shared by all of humanity,” said the company in a statement detailing their new initiative. “It is a problem that threatens the co-existence of the global environment and society, a problem that has an enormous effect on Marubeni’s business and its shareholders, and a problem that Marubeni believes must be dealt with swiftly.”
Marubeni is already one of the driving masterminds behind the Noor Abu Dhabi project: the largest solar project in the Middle East and one of the cheapest solar projects in the world.
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With the company currently ranked as the world’s 11th biggest coal power developer out of 120, the announcement is being hailed as a watershed victory for sustainability.
Energy finance specialist Tim Buckley made a post on Twitter saying that “this has to be one of the biggest breaking stories of 2018 in terms of energy transition.”
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