After having reached financial close for offshore wind farms at Akita Port and Noshiro Port in Japan, Akita Offshore Wind Corporation (AOW) has announced that it is to commence construction this month.
The Offshore Wind Farms are comprised of the bottom-fixed offshore wind farm and the onshore substation and transmission lines and together are expected to be the first large-scale offshore wind power project in Japan established on a commercial basis.
AOW was established in 2016, and is a consortium of Marubeni Corporation, Obayashi Corporation, Tohoku Sustainable & Renewable Energy Co., Cosmo Eco Power Co., the Kansai Electric Power Co., Chubu Electric Power Co., The Akita Bank, Ohmori Co., Sawakigumi Corporation, Kyowa Oil Co., Katokensetsu.Co., Kanpu Co., and Sankyo Co.
The two bottom-fixed wind farms will be installed off Akita Port and Noshiro Port in Akita Prefecture, forming an offshore complex estimated at JPY 100 billion (USD 921.4m).
Multiple domestic and foreign lenders took part in the financing round, in which MUFG Bank, Mizuho Bank and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp acted as joint lead arrangers. The exact amount of the funding was not disclosed.
The OWF Project is a project to construct, operate and maintain the offshore wind farms with approximately 140MW in total electric power to be sold to Tohoku Electric Power Co., Inc. for 20 years under a power purchase agreement based on the feed-in tariff program.
The construction of the onshore substations and transmission lines are expected to start in February 2020 and the commercial operations are expected to start in 2022. During operation, Noshiro Port will be the base port for operations and maintenance.