These two wind farms will generate a total of 140 MW of electricity. According to AOW, this is enough to power around 130,000 average homes.
Wind farm with 33 wind turbines
The 33 seabed-mounted wind turbines, to be installed in two stages off Noshiro Harbor and Akita City, will help reduce power shortages in winter. Each wind turbine has a height of about 150 m from the sea surface to the tip of the blade.
The company started construction in 2020 and installed the first turbines off Noshiro Harbor in July this year.
Since the end of August, AOW is also installing turbines in front of the port of Akita, so that all the wind turbines at both sites can be operational before the end of the year.
AOW intends to sell electricity generated from offshore wind farms through the state’s clean energy feed-in tariff system at a price of 36 yen (about US$0.30) per kilowatt-hour.
Investors turn away from high costs
The Japanese government has set itself the goal of installing offshore wind farms with a maximum capacity of 45 GW by 2040, which corresponds to the capacity of 45 nuclear reactors.
However, investors fear the cost because the wind turbines must be adapted to the Japanese topography and there are no companies in Japan with this experience.
For AOW wind farms, 80 percent of the components, such as blades and B-shafts, are imported from Europe and China. Due to their size, it is very expensive to transport them from abroad.
