The three consortia that Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry (METI) selected in the country’s second round of offshore wind auctions will use some of the biggest and most powerful wind turbines on/coming to the market – Vestas V236-15 MW and GE’s 18 MW Haliade-X.
RWE, which secured a site together with partners Mitsui & Co. and Osaka Gas off the cities of Murakami and Tainai in Niigata Prefecture, plans to build a 684 MW offshore wind farm that will comprise 38 GE turbines with a capacity of 18 MW per unit.
GE revealed the next-generation Haliade-X turbine in an investors’ call in March this year, when Scott L. Strazik, CEO of GE Vernova, said the offshore wind market was receptive of its Haliade-X variant that has a capacity of between 17 MW and 18 MW. The company’s most powerful Haliade-X turbine at this time has an output of 14.7 MW.
The two other consortia, one led by JERA and one by Sumitomo Corporation , have opted for Vestas’s 15 MW offshore wind turbine.
A 315 MW wind farm to be built offshore Akita Prefecture by the JERA-led consortium will have 21 Vestas 15 MW wind turbines, and Sumitono and its partners plan to install 28 units of the same model at their project site in Nagasaki Prefecture.
Vestas has just received a type certificate for its V236-15 MW offshore wind turbine.
The prototype was installed at the Østerild National test centre for large wind turbines in Western Jutland, Denmark in December 2022.
Three months later, the wind turbine reached its nominal power rating of 15 MW. In August, the unit set a world record for the most power output by a single wind turbine in 24 hours, producing 363 MWh in that period.
All three newly awarded offshore wind projects in Japan are expected to be operational in 2028/2029.
The Japanese government offered four sites for offshore wind development in the second round. The developer of the fourth site will be announced in March 2024.