Japanese power utility Tohoku Electric and the Portuguese company Renova will jointly investigate the possibility of building a 700 MW offshore wind project off the coast of Yurihonjo City in Akita prefecture (Japan). The two companies will undertake an environmental impact assessment (EIA). If they decide to move forward with the project, the construction would start in 2021, with the project due to come onstream in the 2024 financial year.
Japan's offshore wind industry is burgeoning. In December 2018, the government passed a bill meant to promote the use of the country's territorial waters for the development offshore renewable power plants. The newly enforced law enables the government to identify approximately five offshore wind development areas and to launch the country's first offshore wind tenders in spring or summer 2019. Successful bidders will be given the right to use the zones for a 30-year period. This represents a major change for the Japanese wind industry, which used to rely on feed-in-tariffs (FiTs) for the development of offshore projects. The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) introduced a specific FIT for offshore wind in 2014. The development of a tender-based system sends a strong signal that the Japanese government is committed to long-term investment in the sector.
In January 2019, Japanese power utility TEPCO announced plans to develop a new 1,000 MW offshore wind project off Choshi (Chiba Prefecture), consisting of 200 wind turbines rated 5 MW each. The company could invest approximately JPY1,000bn (US$9.2bn) in the project. Construction could start as early as fiscal 2019 (April 2019-March 2020). The company hopes to sell the produced power through the existing feed-in tariff (FIT) system.