Japan ‘plans offshore windfarm off Hokkaido’ to power growing tech industry

According to Nikkei Asia, electricity demand on the country’s northernmost island is expected to increase as a result of the construction of a new manufacturing facility for semiconductor manufacturer Rapidus, and a new data centre for SoftBank.

Rapidus broke ground on the new chip manufacturing facility in September 2023. Transmitting power from the main island of Honshu would be expensive, there is an urgent need to expand locally produced renewable energy. SoftBank’s new data centre will also require significant power.

Nikkei Asia said the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry will begin soliciting applications for its fourth round of bidding for offshore wind projects by the end of the fiscal year in March 2025. The target area is off the town of Matsumae at the southern tip of Hokkaido.

The report noted that the Hokkaido coast has strong and stable winds and have high power generation capacity. Hokkaido is the country’s second-largest island.

Commercial operation of the Ishikari Bay New Port offshore windfarm off the coast of Hokkaido was initiated in early 2024. The offshore windfarm, developed by JERA and Green Power Investment (GPI), is Japan’s largest commercial-scale offshore windfarm and the first in the country to use 8-MW wind turbines.

The windfarm has 14 Siemens Gamesa wind turbines and a capacity of 112 MW, around a third of the capacity of the new windfarm. 

All of the electricity generated at the Ishikari Bay New Port windfarm will be supplied to the Hokkaido Electric Power Network (HEPN) after being transmitted through a transformer substation with 180,000 kWh of battery storage capacity.