Japan to facilitate big increase in offshore wind and build in EEZ

Currently, offshore windfarms are only being built in the country’s territorial waters, but building in Japan’s EEZ would help to meet its targets for renewable energy. The news was reported by Japan News, the English language version of The Yomiuri Shimbun.

Japan News said the government intends to submit a bill to the Diet, its national legislature, to amend existing legislation that limits construction to territorial waters. It could do so as soon as March. For the time being, ‘promotion zones’ for offshore wind have been limited to territorial and inland waters of Japan.

The country’s government has set a target of increasing power generation from offshore wind from 30 GW to 45 GW by 2040 and has concluded that to reach this goal it will need to make use of its EEZ, which is about 10 times the area of the country’s territorial waters.

Expanding offshore wind development into Japan’s EEZ and into deeper waters will require the adoption of floating windfarms.

As recently highlighted by OWJ, Japan recently unveiled the winners of its second solicitation for offshore wind and initiated Round 3.