GOTO, Japan: Close to a small fishing port in southwestern Japan, the slim white turbines of the country’s first commercial-scale floating wind farm glimmer offshore, months before a key project in Tokyo’s green-energy strategy begins.
Still heavily reliant on imported fossil fuels, Japan has declared offshore wind energy a “trump card” in its drive to make renewables its top power source by 2040, and reach carbon neutrality a decade later.
That’s despite rising project costs and fears over inadequate infrastructure to produce turbines en masse.
Floating turbines are particularly well suited to Japan as its deep coastal waters make fixing them to seabeds tricky, while the country is also prone to natural disasters.
“Floating structures are relatively stable even in the case of earthquakes or typhoons,” said Kei Ushigami, head of marine renewable energy for construction company Toda, a key player in the project.
The eight turbines, sitting 5km off the coast of the Goto Islands in waters up to 140m deep, will officially start turning in January.
It’s hoped they’ll aid the archipelago in reaching ambitious new targets laid out this year that should see wind’s contribution to the energy mix soar to between four and eight per cent by 2040, up from around one per cent today.
But it’s a long, hard road ahead for resource-scarce Japan – the world’s fifth-largest carbon dioxide emitter – to wean itself off fossil fuels.
In 2024, 65 percent of its electricity needs were met by coal and hydrocarbon-powered thermal plants, while just over a quarter came from renewables, according to Japan’s Institute for Sustainable Energy Policies.
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