Wind power “best solution for Japan”

Hopes high for world’s first offshore wind farm.

Japan’s building of the world’s first wind farm off the coast of Fukushima Prefecture has been described as “. . . the best solution for Japan,” according to Takeshi Ishihara, a professor at the University of Tokyo’s Graduate School of Engineering. The university and several manufacturing companies formed a consortium to build the wind farm.

He said the potential for wind power generation is huge in Japan,. The Environment Ministry said the amount of offshore wind energy that can be potentially generated in Japan is 1.6 billion kilowatts, 10 times that of solar power and 100 times that of thermal power and small and mid-size hydraulic power. It is also eight times the current capacity of Japan’s power companies.

Japan, however, lags behind European countries in wind power generation. Wind power currently accounts for less than 1% of power generation in Japan.

Ishihara said Japan should also have a wind power goal similar to that of Britain, which aims to derive a third of its power generated from wind.

The consortium is planning to start operation of a 2,000 kW floating offshore wind turbine and a floating substation and observation station in October. It is also planning to add two 7,000 kW floating offshore wind turbines by 2015.

The consortium’s goal is to raise power generating capacity of the wind farm to 1 gigawatt.