France’s TotalEnergies [TTE:FP] and Japanese oil company ENEOS [5020:JP] will jointly develop two gigawatts (GW) of solar power capacity in Asia over the next five years and sell renewable power to businesses in the region, as reported by Nikkei Asia on April 14. The two entities intend to set up a 50-50 joint venture (JV) by the end of June, and the JV will install solar panels in nine countries including Japan, India, and Thailand. Also on April 14, the two companies inked a partnership to study the feasibility of manufacturing sustainable aviation fuels (SAFs) in ENEOS’s refinery projects in Yokohama city, Japan.

The two oil producers target the growing demand for renewable energies amid a growing trend toward environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing principles. TotalEnergies is committed to helping its clients achieve their sustainability goals while reducing their costs. The French company sees Asia as a key continent for realizing the firm’s target of reaching 100 GW in renewable generation capacity by 2030. By now, the firm has 2 GW of solar distributed generation projects in operation, under construction, or under development across the world. As for ENEOS, it aims for carbon neutrality within its operations by 2040, ten years ahead of Japan’s carbon-neutral target for 2050. Last October, ENEOS acquired all issued shares of Japan Renewable Energy (JRE) [9283:JP] with USD1.7bn in an effort to raise ENEOS’s renewable power capacity to more than 1 GW by March 2023.

Sources:

https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Business-deals/TotalEnergies-allies-with-Japan-oil-company-on-solar-power-in-Asia

https://totalenergies.com/media/news/press-releases/totalenergies-and-eneos-join-forces-develop-b2b-solar-distributed

https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Comment/Making-Japan-carbon-neutral-by-2050-is-huge-challenge