Matsushima power station is a 1,000 MW coal power station in Nagasaki, Japan. It is operated by J-POWER. Based on its capacity (estimated), it can supply roughly 1.3 million homes (estimated). It ranks #100 of 692 Japan power plants by installed capacity. Commissioned in 1981, it is around 45 years old — long-established. Its modelled annual emissions are 5,560,300 t CO₂/yr (Climate TRACE), equivalent to about 1.3 million cars driven for a year. In context, coal supplies about 32.1% 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 WRI1000673.
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 500 MW for Matsushima 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: B_SCOPE_PARENT_COMPLEX - recommended action: build_parent_complex_model - confidence: not_comparable_without_scope. 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 1,000 MW, Matsushima power station is well above the median coal plant in Japan (250 MW). Technically it is described as supercritical. Its current lifecycle status is “mothballed” — so it is not yet, or no longer, generating at full output. Coal plants burn pulverised coal to raise high-pressure steam for a turbine; they run as baseload but are the most carbon-intensive mainstream source and the first targeted for retirement or efficiency retrofits.
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 J-POWER.
This coal plant burns coal to raise high-pressure steam that spins a turbine-generator. It sits in a humid subtropical climate (Köppen Cfa) — Northern Hemisphere, latitude 32.9°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 34% 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: 37/100 — 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 #20 largest coal power plant of 94 in Japan by capacity.
Japan has 94 coal power plants in this dataset, together about 53,431 MW of capacity.
Coordinates 32.9409, 129.5969 from WRI Global Power Plant Database (CC BY 4.0). View on OpenStreetMap.
Matsushima power station is a 1,000 MW source-record coal power plant in Nagasaki, Japan, commissioned in 1981.
Its output is enough to supply roughly 1,251,428 homes (estimated).
Matsushima power station is operated by J-POWER.
Matsushima power station has modelled emissions of about 5,560,300 tonnes of CO₂ per year (Climate TRACE).
