AKITA--Wind turbines as tall as 40-story buildings dot the water off the coast of Akita Prefecture, a sign that construction of Japan's first large-scale offshore wind farm has entered the homestretch.
Although the project proceeds as scheduled, the total cost of the wind farms will be 100 billion yen ($729 million). And ultimately the question remains of who will cover the costs.
The 33 bottom-mounted wind turbines at two sites near the ports of Noshiro and Akita are expected to help alleviate power shortages in winter.
Each turbine is about 150 meters from sea level to the tip of the blade.
The developer, Akita-based Akita Offshore Wind Corporation (AOW), said it had begun a test run.
"We will probably start commercial operations by the end of November," AOW President Keiji Okagaki said at an Aug. 18 briefing session.
AOW's shareholders include major utility and construction companies, rooted in leading trading house Marubeni Corp.
Okagaki is a former Marubeni employee.
The farms will be able to produce a total of about 140 megawatts of electricity, enough to power about 130,000 average homes, AOW said.
The company began construction in 2020 and installed the first turbine near Nashiro Port in July this year.
AOW has been installing turbines from the port of Akita since late August so that all turbines at the two sites can enter commercial operation before the end of the year, Okagaki said.
"Production of results will help raise funds (for the future)," he said. "It will serve as a springboard for expanding offshore wind generation (in Japan)."
There have been no major delays for the project. Heavy rains and the novel coronavirus pandemic have limited impact.
Using the government's feed-in tariff system for clean energy, AOW wants to sell electricity generated at offshore wind farms to main utilities at 36 yen per kilowatt-hour to secure a profit.
Offshore wind farms are already common in Europe and elsewhere, and are believed to have helped drive down costs for renewable energy.
The Japanese government has set a target of commissioning a maximum of 45 gigawatts of offshore wind farms by 2040, the equivalent of 45 nuclear reactors.
But according to Okagaki, the main obstacle to the widespread introduction of offshore wind farms in Japan is the high cost.
Developers need technology to build wind turbines suited to Japan's environment, where seabed topography and wind patterns differ from those in Europe.
However, there are no Japanese manufacturers with the expertise to produce wind turbine components for this type of environment.
For AOW's wind farms, 80 percent of components, such as blades and shafts, are imported from Europe and China. Their large size makes them expensive to transport from abroad.
It is possible that these costs will be passed on to customers' electricity bills.
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