The government, seeking to address a historically high rate of inflation, delayed the requests and asked for a reassessment of costs. Hokuriku Electric's loss reached 88.4 billion yen in the year that ended on March 31, the deepest since it started disclosing consolidated earnings in 1994, and compared with a loss of 7 billion yen a year earlier.
Hokkaido Electric's loss came to 22.2 billion yen, against a profit of 7 billion yen the year before, its first loss in nearly a decade, while Shikoku Electric reported a loss of 23 billion yen versus the previous year's loss of 6.3 billion yen.
Hokuriku Electric said revenue would take a hit of about 1.5 billion yen a month without the requested rate increases. Global energy prices have eased from peaks in the middle of last year after Russia's invasion of Ukraine exacerbated a post-pandemic energy crisis. Still, input costs are high and utilities also need to align with the government's 2050 zero-emissions goal.
Pressure only increased this month after the Group of Seven rich nations - chaired by Japan this year - reaffirmed a goal to achieve a fully or predominantly decarbonised power sector by 2035 and pushed for major new renewable energy goals.
NUCLEAR POWER HELPS
Having nuclear power among its energy sources helped Kansai
Electric Power Co - which powers Japan's major
industrial area of Osaka - to remain in net profit of 17.7
billion yen but it was still 79% lower than in the 2021/22
fiscal year.
Kansai Electric said on Thursday that its sales increased by
39% to 4 trillion yen, helping to offset a hit its profit took
from higher prices of fuel, including liquefied natural gas and
coal.
The 2011 Fukushima disaster prompted Japan to idle most of
its nuclear reactors but it is now trying to bring some back
online and may even build new ones as the energy crisis brings
new thinking in energy-poor Japan on energy security.
Kansai Electric plans to restart its two remaining Takahama
nuclear reactors this summer and a projected increase in nuclear
power's utilization rate to about 70% should help it to reach
its profit target of 305 billion yen this fiscal year.
($1 = 133.8100 yen)
(Reporting by Katya Golubkova and Yuka Obayashi; Editing by
Christopher Cushing, Robert Birsel)
