EDP Energises a 44 MWp Fukushima Solar Plant on a Reconverted Golf Course — 63,000 Panels Sell 48 GWh/Year to Amazon Under a Long-Term PPA as the APAC AWS Pipeline Crosses 1.4 GW

EDP Renewables APAC announced on Thursday 28 May that it has placed into commercial operation a 44 MWp solar power plant in Fukushima, Japan, built over 60 hectares of a deactivated golf course and structured around more than 63,000 photovoltaic panels. The facility — the largest single solar asset EDP carries in Japan — is contracted to deliver more than 48 GWh of electricity each year to Amazon under a long-term Power Purchase Agreement, the second PPA EDP has signed with the technology group in the Asia-Pacific region after a Singapore project in 2021.

Miguel Stilwell d'Andrade, the EDP chief executive, framed the asset as confirmation that renewable energy has become "a strategic engine" for enterprises and economies and emphasised that long-term industrial partnerships of this size are the channel through which Portuguese-anchored utilities now scale Asia-Pacific capacity. Amazon, on the buyer side, fits the project inside its Climate Pledge commitment to reach net-zero carbon emissions across all operations by 2040 — and inside an AWS regional power-procurement strategy that has now contracted more than 1.4 GW of renewable capacity from EDP across multiple jurisdictions.

Why Fukushima, Why a Golf Course

The Fukushima prefecture's post-2011 industrial-policy track has prioritised low-carbon redevelopment of land that local prefectural and municipal authorities reclassified after the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami. Deactivated golf courses — Japan registers over 200 such sites — have emerged as the preferred land bank for utility-scale solar in central Honshu because the terrain is already cleared, the grid interconnection footprint exists from the previous resort use, and the prefectural permitting process for ground-mount PV on these tracts moves faster than greenfield approvals. The 60-hectare scale is consistent with the typical 18-hole site profile and lands the EDP project in line with the dominant repurposing template across Tochigi, Gunma and Fukushima prefectures.

The Operating Read

EDP's plant outperformed energy-production forecasts during its commissioning runs and is currently operating with availability rates above 98%, a figure the group cites as exceeding the typical commissioning benchmark for new utility-scale PV. The 48 GWh annual generation translates roughly into the consumption of more than 14,500 average Japanese households and avoids the emission of approximately 22,000 tonnes of CO₂ each year against the average Japanese grid intensity — meaningful at the project scale and material to Amazon's regional Scope 2 reporting.

What This Means for Expats

• EDP shareholders in Portugal: The Fukushima asset lands inside an APAC pipeline EDP carries against a global target above 500 MWp by 2030 and contributes to the renewables EBITDA mix the group reports each quarter through the EDP Renováveis subsidiary listed on Euronext Lisbon. The Amazon contract carries a fixed-tariff structure that anchors revenue visibility through the decade.
• Lisbon residents on energy bills: Asset additions outside Iberia do not move the Portuguese retail-electricity tariff directly. The mercado regulado tariff is set by ERSE on the iberian pool dynamics rather than on EDP's group-level pipeline. The relevant near-term Portuguese signal remains the ERSE evento-excecional read on the April 2025 Iberian blackout and the rolling Galp-PSI ex-dividend mechanics.
• Working at EDP locally: The APAC build-out is a meaningful pipeline for Portuguese engineers willing to relocate to the Singapore, Tokyo or Taipei hubs. EDP Renewables APAC has been hiring on the Lisbon engineering and project-finance side to support deal origination from the Iberian Peninsula, with rotations into the regional offices structured as 18-to-36-month tours.
• Climate-conscious purchasing: The Amazon contract is one of the cleaner reference points for what a credible corporate renewable PPA looks like — a long-term fixed-tariff offtake tied to a physical project. Households tracking the EU green-claims directive transposition can read the EDP-Amazon structure as the template behind the "verifiable commitment" language Brussels now wants in product-level net-zero claims.

EDP's Asia-Pacific renewables strategy positions the group as one of the few European utilities with a meaningful regional footprint, alongside Iberdrola and Engie. The Fukushima switch-on follows EDP Renováveis' 2026 capital-markets day signal that APAC will carry a rising share of growth capex through 2027, and frames the next milestone as the construction-phase update on the 28 MWp Aichi-prefecture project EDP first flagged in April.