Wind Farm to Appear at Tokyo Waterfront

In cooperation with private firms, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government will install wind turbines on municipally owned waterfront property along Tokyo Bay. This will be the first full-scale wind-powered electricity generation facility in Japan's capital region. Two wind turbines will be erected by the end of FY 2002, at a cost of about 200 million yen (1.7 million dollars, 1 dollar=118 yen) per turbine. The Metropolitan Government will not only lend about 800 square meters of its land for the two turbines to the private corporations for free, but it will also exempt the firms from fixed property taxes for 15 years, equal to 20 million yen (169,000 dollars), in order to promote wind power generation at its waterfront.

Wind power commercially breaks even when the yearly average wind speed is five meters per second or more, and the Tokyo Bay waterfront is said to satisfy this condition, but just barely. The turbines' total capacity of 1,800 kW can supply 1,000 households, and the electricity generated will be sold to Tokyo Electric Power Co., Inc.



Posted: 2002/08/24 04:13:05 PM
Japanese version