Gobo is a 1,800 MW oil power station in Wakayama, Japan. It is operated by Kansai. Based on its capacity (estimated), it can supply roughly 1.4 million homes (estimated). It ranks #45 of 692 Japan power plants by installed capacity. Commissioned in 1984, it is around 42 years old — long-established. Its modelled annual emissions are 662,260 t CO₂/yr (Climate TRACE), equivalent to about 154k cars driven for a year. In context, oil supplies about 2.5% of Japan's electricity; the national grid averages 477 gCO₂/kWh (32.7% low-carbon) (2025).
Plant data: WRI Global Power Plant Database (CC BY 4.0), id WRI1000650.
Known, modelled and calculated values are kept separate. Missing fields are shown as unavailable.
The public capacity above is the current source-record value. A 2026 tracker candidate lists 1,200 MW for Gobo power station, but it is not used as the public primary value until scope is verified (unit vs operating vs installed/project total).
Capacity claim grade: A3_MAJOR_REVIEW_SCOPE_STATUS - recommended action: manual_scope_status_check - confidence: low_until_scope_verified. This follows a claim-based data model: value + scope + source + confidence, rather than silently overwriting records.
The capacity and/or fuel fields on this page include a source-backed provenance label from GEM, an official registry, Wikidata, OSM, or a cross-source match.
capacity: Wikidata P2109 nameplate capacity; fuel: WRI source-record fuel
At 1,800 MW, Gobo is well above the median oil plant in Japan (1,000 MW). Technically it is described as Steam. Oil-fired plants burn heavy fuel oil or diesel, usually as peaking or backup capacity on islands and grids without gas pipelines; high fuel cost keeps their utilisation low.
Capacity comparison computed from the WRI Global Power Plant Database; fuel-type context is general engineering background.
This facility's annual emissions are roughly equivalent to:
Equivalencies via US EPA Greenhouse Gas Equivalencies; modelled emissions from Climate TRACE.
Installed capacity (MW), WRI Global Power Plant Database (CC BY 4.0).
Operated by Kansai. All plants by this company →
This oil plant burns oil or diesel to drive turbines or reciprocating engines. It sits in a humid subtropical climate (Köppen Cfa) — Northern Hemisphere, latitude 33.9°N — which shapes how much energy it can produce and how its output varies through the year.
Monthly mean temperature
Heating degree-days here run 37% below the median power plant in this dataset — a proxy for how much extra energy heated equipment must replace through its surfaces in winter.
Climate heat-demand index: 35/100 — this site sits in the mid third of the power plants we cover by heating degree-days.
Climate normals: WorldClim 2.1 (1970–2000 monthly normals, 10 arc-min, CC BY 4.0); zone: Köppen-Geiger world climate classification (Kottek et al. 2006, 0.5° grid). Degree-days & heat-demand index computed by PowerAtlas — a modelled heat-demand proxy, not a measured site figure.
For a plant’s outdoor hardware — heat-recovery steam generators (HRSG), expansion joints, valves, flanges and their insulation — the local climate sets how fast unprotected steel and coatings degrade. This site sits in a corrosive environment (estimated ISO 9223 class C4 — High), with humidity / wetness the leading environmental stress.
Higher environmental severity is exactly where protective removable insulation pays back most: a sheltered micro-climate slows corrosion, UV and thermal-cycling damage and extends outdoor hardware service life. This is an indicative site-climate context — not a condition assessment of any specific plant or operator.
Indicative estimate via the ISO 9223:2012 informative method (atmospheric corrosivity from temperature, time-of-wetness and airborne salinity), using WorldClim climate normals, the Köppen-Geiger class and coast distance. Indicative, not a measured corrosion rate.
The #9 largest oil power plant of 41 in Japan by capacity.
Japan has 41 oil power plants in this dataset, together about 48,987 MW of capacity.
Coordinates 33.86, 135.1531 from WRI Global Power Plant Database (CC BY 4.0). View on OpenStreetMap.
Gobo is a 1,800 MW source-record oil power plant in Wakayama, Japan, commissioned in 1984.
Its output is enough to supply roughly 1,351,542 homes (estimated).
Gobo is operated by Kansai.
Gobo has modelled emissions of about 662,260 tonnes of CO₂ per year (Climate TRACE).
