Publication date: October 2014
Japan’s offshore wind industry needs to accelerate Research, Development and Deployment (RD&D) efforts to reduce the country’s exposure to the highly volatile costs of imported energy and secure its future energy supply, according to a series of reports released today by the Carbon Trust. To realise the potential of Japan’s abundant wind energy resource the pace of technology RD&D to develop technology solutions capable of surviving Japan’s unique and challenging offshore conditions, needs to be accelerated.
The analysis, funded by the UK government’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office, identifies technical, policy and regulatory challenges faced by the industry. It maps existing local solutions against where experience from the more developed European offshore wind industry could be leveraged to cut consenting, planning and construction costs, and speed up deployment of offshore wind in Japan.
The research identified a number of key areas to focus on including;
- Increase RD&D in innovation to reduce development, construction and operational costs. Key areas to focus on include floating wind, novel foundations and collecting offshore environmental measurements.
- Increase availability of vessels for installation, operation and maintenance. Explore alternative deployment strategies for example foundations floated out to site, possibly as an integrated structure including the turbine. Companies could look to import bespoke vessels, or construct them locally.
- Use of floating LIDAR technologies could help to significantly reduce costs of gathering meteorological data at site-scale, particularly given the challenges of deep water sites.
- Assign consenting authority to one central department and streamline environmental impact assessment regulations, to reduce length of process. Undertaking studies to better understand the impact of wind farms on marine species can support this.
