Shattered by the enormity of the Fukushima nuclear disaster and bleeding customers to nimbler rivals, Tokyo's lumbering, 66-year-old electric-power behemoth has a new strategy for long-term survival: reinventing itself as a cutting-edge innovator.
Tepco, known formally as Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc., is scouring the periphery of the industry for the latest ideas and technologies — using blockchain to manage power flows is one possibility. The company is hunting both overseas and around Japan for startups and other investments with the potential to revolutionize the power sector.
"We must ensure our survival because we're responsible for the Fukushima cleanup and revitalization," Shinichiro Kengaku, who leads a Tepco task force that invests in foreign companies, said in an interview. "We realized we had to be more proactive in pushing innovation. We want to be the ones disrupting the industry, not the ones being disrupted."