Promising Floating Offshore Wind Farm Project Starts off Fukushima Prefecture

Copyright Fukushima Floating Offshore Wind Farm Consortium

Marubeni, a project integrator, together with the University of Tokyo and nine companies announced on March 6, 2012, a consortium to build for an experimental floating offshore wind farm sponsored by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. Based on the idea of co-existence between fisheries and floating wind farms, three floating offshore wind turbines and one offshore substation will be constructed off the coast of Fukushima Prefecture.

Phase one of this research project, to be started during fiscal 2011, will construct one floating offshore wind power generator with a two-megawatts downwind turbine, and the world's first 66-kilovolt floating offshore substation with subsea cables. Phase two will be carried out from fiscal 2013 through 2015, and two floating wind platforms will be added with seven-megawatt wind turbines.

Fukushima Prefecture has high hopes that new industrial projects with a focus on renewable energy and the creation of new jobs will contribute to restoration from the damage caused by the Great East Japan Earthquake. The prefecture aims to take advantage of this project as an opportunity for establishing larger wind farms on industrial parks.

Offshore Wind Farm Verification Project Off Kitakyushu City Begins (Related JFS article)
Offshore Wind Farm Withstands Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami (Related JFS article)

Posted: 2012/07/08 06:00:15 AM