Construction of the first offshore wind turbines in Setana Port in Japan

Two 600 kW wind turbines were built in the Setana Port area in summer 2003, and started official electric generation from April 1st, 2004. They are the very first wind turbines built in the offshore area in Japan. In Hokkaido, there are many wind energy development projects on land, and of course there are many wind turbines operating in Tohoku area, northern part of Honshu Island, too. While offshore wind farms, consisting of ten to twenty wind turbines at a single offshore location, are being built and operated from 1980s and 90s in Europe, no such offshore project is realized in Japan before. But cooperating with the Setana Town government, RIOE (Research Institute for Ocean Economics) had examined the feasibility of the offshore site selection of wind turbines, thanks to the large unused sea area of the port and to the financial support from NEDO (New Energy Development Corporation). Potential of the wind energy on site is quite favorable with 7.9 m/s average through a year, and good efficiency is expected. RIOE organized research committee on this project for a couple of years and executed the basic design phases. Joint Venture Construction company consisted of Kawasaki Heavy Industries and Penta-Ocean companies were engaged in construction and had unique experience. Problems faced with are not only in the technical but also in the economic field with regard to selling the produced electricity to the Hokkaido Electric Company. Those experiences are described and discussed the possibility of the offshore wind farms in Japan in this paper.