Japan Setting the Scene for Offshore Wind Development

As Japan’s shift to renewable energy gears up after the Fukushima disaster, the country is progressively pushing for offshore wind power, having in mind that its onshore wind capacities are rather limited.

The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) announced on Friday that it will establish a study group dubbed the Procurement Price Calculation Committee to set the procurement price for offshore wind power.

Wind power price is currently set at 23.1 yen (USD 24 cents) for 20 years under the Feed-in Tariff Scheme for Renewable Energy, for both onshore and offshore wind projects. The procurement price of offshore wind power has not been set until now because offshore wind technology is determined to be discussed when its cost data becomes available.

This could be a confirmation of local media claims from last week, according to which the country will separate feed-in tariffs for onshore and offshore wind in order to attract investors in offshore wind energy with higher incentives.

The study group, membered by external experts, will be engaged in updating data with respect to the reliability of demonstration project results and cost trends of overseas examples. Even though Japan is testing several floating wind power projects, the study group will focus on the fixed-bottom wind turbines, because there are enough projects and examples of this type to examine.

“After streamlining the data, the results will be discussed at a meeting of the Procurement Price Calculation Committee to determine whether or not it is appropriate to reflect the possible procurement price of the offshore wind power in the FY2014 list of procurement prices (tariffs) based on the provisions of related laws,” METI said.

[mappress]

Offshore WIND Staff, November 6, 2013; Image: MHI