60% certified as an excellent business operator 一 The number of stagnant business operators (B class) dropped
On April 3rd, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry announced of decision for the excellent business operators. They are classified based on the result of status reports of the targeted business operators whose total energy consumption (crude oil equivalent) is 1,500 kL or more per year. The ratio of excellent companies (S class) was 56.5% among the target of 11,377 companies and remained almost at the same level as previous year. General business operators (A class) increased by 4.9 points to 32.7%, and stagnant business operators (B class) decreased by 4.8 points to 10.8%. Among them, 34 companies including major electric power companies were evaluated as S (Excellent business operator) class in the classification of “electricity industry” Sanix Energy Co. Ltd. (Tomakomai City, Hokkaido), Soma Energy Park Co.。Ltd. (Soma City, Fukushima Prefecture), Nippon Paper Ishinomaki Energy Center (Ishinomaki City, Miyagi Prefecture), Summit Sakata Power Co. Ltd. (Sakata City, Yamagata Prefecture) and Hibikinada Energy Park Co. Ltd. (Kitakyushu City) were selected as S class for the first time.