THE RISING SUN OF RENEWABLES
Why Japan is leading the world towards using advanced black pellets
High-ranking representatives of Canada’s biomass and forestry industries recently returned from the country’s second 2025 trade mission to Japan to bolster relationships with its energy industry.
The November mission to the Far East saw two Provincial forestry ministers joined by First Nations leaders and Wood Pellet Association of Canada (WPAC) delegates meeting with Japanese trade partners and utilities.
Canada’s ambassadors also visited Omaezaki Biomass Power Station on Suruga Bay, after it commenced operations to burn only wood pellets and palm kernel shells last January.
Omaezaki’s power plant uses around 300,000 tonnes of biomass each year, a third of which is imported from Canada, to generate enough electricity to power 170,000 Japanese households.
Canadian wood pellet exports to Japan grew eighteen-fold in ten years to 2024 – from CAD$11M to CAD$207M. The business envoys sought to extend that growth trajectory, as Japan holds firm on its pledge to reach carbon neutrality by 2050.
Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) has a dedicated team to develop its standards for biomass inputs. And WPAC delegates were joined by Alberta’s Minister of Forestry and Parks Todd Loewen and British Columbia’s Minister of Forests Ravi Parmar in offering sincere assurances about the ethical sources of Canadian biomass fuel.
Japan has emerged as the global epicentre for the adoption of biomass fuel, and most recently particularly advanced black pellets, in its transition to green energy.
The country also insists it will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 46 percent before 2030. And it intends to achieve that target by integrating new steam-treated black wood pellets into its national grid, at pace.
The country’s growing appetite for advanced black pellets isn’t accidental. It is the result of a nexus of four conditions including ambitious decarbonisation targets, unique geographical necessity, longevity of existing coal infrastructure and a generous regulatory framework around its energy transition.
Each condition is explored here.
Decarbonization and Carbon Neutrality
Japan’s climate targets are clear. The country intends to be carbon neutral by 2050 and, on the way, it will cut greenhouse gas emission almost in half by 2030. Japan’s METI guidelines consider burning biomass to be carbon neutral, given any CO₂ emissions generated were previously absorbed by trees during their growth cycle.
Furthermore, it has rigorously assessed steam-treated black pellets over their life cycle, taking into account the minimal amount of energy needed to create them, their high bulk density which requires fewer shipments and their lower processing requirements at furnace end. Correctly, in Japan’s eyes, steam-treated black pellets have a highly favourable carbon footprint.
Geographical and Logistical Necessity
Japan is a mountainous island nation with limited land available for large-scale energy storage, and a humid climate that is hostile to traditional white and most torrefied pellets. Both ultimately disintegrate when exposed to moisture, and require expensive sealed, climate-controlled silos and covered transport to stop them rotting, crumbling and creating hazardous dust.
Advanced black pellets, particularly those created by steam explosion, are hydrophobic. They can be shipped and stored in the open air. This eliminates the need for large capital infrastructure investment on scarce land resources at Japan's coastal ports and power plants. The superior energy density of steam treated pellets also reduces transportation costs.
Coal Infrastructure Optimization
Japan possesses a suite of high-efficiency, low-emission coal-fired power plants that are still relatively young. Retiring these assets prematurely would constitute a damaging move for Japan’s long term economy, an excessively expensive logistical operation and an even more costly exercise in replacing them with alternative energy infrastructure nationwide.
Steam-treated pellets offer an obvious viable drop-in solution for keeping Japan’s power stations, and many cement works, running without the price of plant retrofits required to burn traditional white and most torrefied wood pellets. Steam-treated advanced black pellets also offer excellent grindability and the most attractive co-firing ratios of all pellet biofuel.
Progressive Political Policy
The primary engine behind Japan’s biomass boom is its Feed-in Tariff (FIT) system, launched in 2012 following the Fukushima disaster to diversify its energy mix. These intentionally generous tariffs provide the financial certainty that utilities need to invest in advanced fuel types. Japanese FIT rates often pay more than ¥20/kWh for large-scale biomass energy.
Japan’s Energy Savings Act also requires large power stations to achieve a generating efficiency of at least 41 percent by 2030. Carbon-neutral biofuel pellets help them meet these efficiency standards, while the country’s J-Credits Scheme allows utilities to earn industrial emissions credits that can be sold to other Japanese companies to offset their discharges.
Japanese firms are doggedly securing offtake from production facilities across the world to ensure a steady supply of advanced black pellets for their growing number of power plants.
Sumitomo Corporation, Tokuyama Corporation, Idemitsu Kosan, Kobe Steel and Mitsubishi UBE Cement among others compete for available supplies.
In doing so, they are helping Japan to turn specialised steam explosion technology into a cornerstone of an economy and a key player in its long term carbon-neutrality goal.
As other nations begin to move away from coal, this new “Japanese model” is becoming an appealing blueprint for advanced biofuel integration, and energy and economic transition.
