Last week, the government confirmed that wind resource assessments and geological surveys would start immediately across all sites:
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Off the north side of Aomori prefecture in the north of the country’s main island;
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Off the south side of Aomori prefecture;
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Off Murakami City and Niigata City, in Niigata prefecture in the west of the country’s main island;
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Off Hokkaido Iwa and Minamishiribeshi area
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Off the coast of Hiyama, Hokkaido
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Mutsu Bay, Aomori Prefecture
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Off the coast of Happo Town and Noshiro City, Akita Prefecture
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Akita Prefecture Katagami City and Akita City Offshore
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Off the coast of Yusa Town, Yamagata Prefecture
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Off Eshima, Saikai City, Nagasaki Prefecture home to a World Heritage Site.
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Some of these sites differ from Japan’s original list drafted last year. Japan’s ministries of economy, trade and industry (METI) and land, infrastructure and transport (MLIT) and the Port Authority of Japan had already identified four ‘advanced’ areas of development last year:
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Off Noshiro in Akita prefecture in the north-west of the country’s main island;
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Off Yurihonjo, also in Akita;
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Off Choshi in Chiba prefecture in the south-east of the country’s main island;
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And a site suitable for floating offshore wind off Goto island, part of Nagasaki prefecture, in the west of the country’s south-westernmost island.
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Last month, Japan’s first floating tender auction was launched in the Nagasaki prefecture. Before this, Japan’s planning system has previously only permitted offshore wind development in waters off its ports and harbours.
Japan’s deep waters make floaters the only tenable solution for utility-scale offshore wind. To date, the Nagasaki prefecture can boast only the Toda Corporation-owned 2MW Kitakyushu Hibikinada floating demonstrator project off the coast of Goto City.
This week, it was reported that Japan was creating new rules to help support the development of 30 offshore wind sites during the next decade, according to the Nikkei business daily.
The new policy could allow for 10GW of new capacity allocated by 2030 starting from the next financial year.
