Abundant resources, offshore wind power sites are rich

Japan has the seventh largest coastline in the world, and the long and narrow coastline gives Japan unique conditions to develop offshore wind power.

Although water depths are increasing rapidly in coastal areas of Japan, typical depths are 200m, relatively close to the coast (20km-50km). However, in relatively shallow waters below 50m, Japan has a huge resource potential of around 61GW. This not only provides a huge opportunity for stationary offshore wind, but deeper waters also provide an opportunity for Japan to become a leading market for floating wind.

The development of cost-effective floating offshore wind technology in deeper and more distant waters is important for Japan to help it meet its electricity supply needs while also helping it meet its climate goals.

The biggest problem facing the development of offshore wind power in Japan, especially floating offshore wind power, is the cost problem.

It is understood that Japan’s first offshore wind power pilot project was put into use as early as 2003, but by the end of 2019, Japan had only 66 MW of offshore wind power installed. There is still a big gap with the offshore wind power installation target set by the Japanese government, in other words, the development of the offshore wind power market in Japan has huge potential.

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Inheritance of genes, Toshiba re-enters the wind power market

This partnership with GE is not Toshiba’s first entry into the wind power market, in fact, Toshiba has already injected rich wind power genes as early as 10 years ago.

International Energy network/wind power headlines (wechat signal: wind-2005s) query information found that in 2011, Toshiba and South Korean wind turbine manufacturer Unison set up a capital alliance; In June 2012, Toshiba invested 24 billion won to become the largest shareholder of yunisun, a South Korean wind power equipment manufacturer. In September 2013, Toshiba announced it would enter the wind Power market through the acquisition of Sigma Power Janex Co. Ltd., a subsidiary of Janex.

Toshiba’s previous acquisitions include wind turbine manufacturers and wind power operators, and it has accumulated certain experience in wind power equipment manufacturing and wind power project operation.

At present, Macquarie Green Investment Group (GIG) and Iberdrola are planning six offshore wind farms with a total development scale of 3.3GW.