Japan’s municipalities and major companies will build a mega solar power plant near Kumamoto airport in southwestern Japan, Kyodo News reported on Monday.

Kumamoto Prefecture, the Kumamoto town of Kikuyo, trading house Mitsubishi Corp. and Mitsubishi Research Institute Inc. held a signing ceremony for the project on Monday. Construction cost of the 2,000-kilowatt plan is expected to be 650 million yen (about 8. 2 million US dollars).

The plant is planned to operate for 20 years from April 2013. Its output will be sold to Kyushu Electric Power Co. under a so- called fixed-price purchase system for renewable energy.

Yorihiko Kojima, chairman of Mitsubishi Corp., said his company sees the importance of the new energy and electricity businesses. "We’ve done those operations overseas, but from now on we’d like to do so in the domestic market as well," he said.

Local companies will produce the solar panels and main parts for the plant, the report said.