French-Japanese Floating Offshore Wind Partnership Forges Ahead

BW Ideol AS has executed an investment agreement with Japan’s JERA and France’s ADEME Investissement to create an investment company for financing the co-development of floating offshore wind projects using BW Ideol’s patented Damping Pool® technology over the next five years.

BW Ideol will hold 51 per cent of the new entity, with JERA and ADEME Investissement holding 24.5 per cent each.

The final agreement is in line with the key terms signed by the three parties in 2020, BW Ideol said.

According to the agreement from 2020, the investment company will finance the development phase of at least 2 GW of projects.

”This agreement materialises our solid relationship with JERA, Japan’s largest utility company and an established player in offshore wind developments especially in Japan and Asia,” said Paul de la Guérivière, CEO of BW Ideol.

”We are also pleased to further consolidate our relationship with the Investment for the Future Program (sponsor of ADEME Investissement) which has been a partner of BW Ideol in the financing of its Floatgen demonstrator. This 3-party collaboration reflects our joint ambition to fully capitalise on the opportunities created by the rapidly growing offshore floating wind market by leveraging BW Ideol’s growth strategy track as co-developer of floating wind projects based on our unique floating foundation technology.”

BW Ideol is the only floating technology provider with two full-scale assets in operation in France and Japan.

”Floating offshore wind has a large energy potential and is expected to play a significant role in expanding the introduction of renewable energy in the future. We believe this agreement between the three companies will accelerate the development of floating offshore wind and open up the possibility of using offshore energy in Japan and other areas with limited potential for fixed-bottom offshore wind,” JERA Managing Executive Officer Satoshi Yajima said.

ADEME Investissement is a French State-owned investment company aiming at financing innovative infrastructure projects funded by the Investment for the Future Program.

”We do believe that floating offshore wind is on its way to confirm its potential and become a substantial contributor to achieving future climate goals. This partnership aims at financing first commercial scale projects and at supporting BW Ideol’s technology as both will contribute to accelerate the competitiveness of floating offshore wind,” said Arnaud Leroy, CEO of ADEME.