RUSSIA proposes exporting power to JAPAN

Russia has offered to export electricity from the island of Sakhalin to the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido, using undersea cables, the Nikkei business daily said on Friday, in what would be Japan’s first imports of electric power.

The proposal calls for a total transmission capacity of 4 gigawatts by 2025 at a project cost of US$5.68 billion (HK$44.1 billion), the paper said, citing an interview with Alexey Kaplun, deputy general director of Russia’s RAO Energy System of East, the biggest power utility in the Russian Far East.