Page 12 - AsiaElec Week 01 2021

AsiaElec RENEWABLES AsiaElec

BW Ideol teams up with

JERA, ADEME to boost

floating offshore wind

JAPAN NORWEGIAN offshore floating wind technol- Hitachi ABB Power Grids to develop scalable
ogy developer BW Ideol has brought in Japan’s floating offshore substations to support large
JERA and France’s ADEME Investissement to offshore wind farms.
finance offshore wind projects that will use BW A key barrier to building grid-scale off-
Ideol’s patented Damping Pool technology. shore wind farms is connecting the turbines to
BW Ideol is to take 51% in a new joint ven- national grids.
ture, with JERA and ADEME Investissement Floating offshore wind is the next frontier
holding 24.5% each. in offshore wind power, with installed capacity
“This agreement materialises our solid rela- forecast to grow from 66 MW in 2019 to at least
tionship with JERA, Japan’s largest utility com- 6.2 GW in 2030, according to the Global Wind
pany and an established player in offshore wind Energy Council (GWEC).
developments especially in Japan and Asia. We Europe, Asia and North America are
are also pleased to further consolidate our rela- expected to the key markets for deep-water, off-
tionship with the Investment for the Future Pro- shore resources.
gramme (sponsor of ADEME Investissement), The new technology will have to play a key
which has been a partner of BW Ideol in the role in reducing the cost of floating offshore
financing of its Floatgen demonstrator,” said Paul wind, which is currently the most expensive
de la Guérivière, CEO of BW Ideol. form of renewable generating technology.
JERA is Japan’s largest utility company, and The Japanese government estimates that
ADEME Investissement is a French state-owned current capex costs of floating offshore can be
investment company aiming at financing inno- as high as $10mn per MW but could be commer-
vative infrastructure projects funded by the cially feasible if brought down to $4mn per MW,
Investment for the Future Programme. compared with grounded offshore capex costs
JERA managing executive officer Satoshi of $2-3mn per MW and an average Asia-Pacific
Yajima said: “Floating offshore wind has a large onshore wind capex cost of $1.5mn per MW by
energy potential and is expected to play a sig- 2030.
nificant role in expanding the introduction of In 2021, Tokyo held its first floating offshore
renewable energy in the future. We believe this wind auction, with a group led by Toda Corpo-
agreement between the three companies will ration offering to build a 16.8-MW floating wind
accelerate the development of floating offshore project.
wind and open up the possibility of using off- Japan plans to award 10 GW of offshore
shore energy in Japan and other areas with lim- wind capacity by 2030, with 1 GW per year of
ited potential for fixed-bottom offshore wind”. tenders.™
BW Ideol has already worked with Japan’s

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