Floating wind turbine of 7 MW anchored off Fukushima today

A 7-MW MHI SeaAngel turbine was anchored on Wednesday off the Japanese coast under the Fukushima floating offshore wind farm demonstration project (Fukushima FORWARD).

The oil pressure drive-type floating wind turbine is expected to commence demonstration operation later in 2015, joining a 2-MW machine which has been online since November 2013. Next year, the third and last piece of the demonstration project will fall into place with the floating of a 5-MW Hitachi turbine.

Finally... The world's largest floating offshore wind turbine has just been anchored outside #Fukushima! #milestone pic.twitter.com/rowtsTyrDD

— Johan Sandberg (@JohanSSandberg) July 29, 2015

All in all, the project consortium will aim to expand the scheme to 1 GW by the end of the decade, when it will use a total of 140 floating offshore wind turbines, the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) said. The project is sponsored by the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI).

Japanese firm Mitsubishi Corp (TYO:8058) acts as project integrator for the consortium behind the experimental offshore wind project. Other members are Marubeni, The University of Tokyo, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Japan Marine United Corp, Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding, Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal, Hitachi Ltd, Furukawa Electric, Shimizu Corp and Mizuho Information & Research Institute Inc. They have been working on the project since March 2012.

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