Oslo-listed floating wind tech developer BW Ideol has signed a deal with Japan's largest oil refiner Eneos to develop a site-specific
commercial-scale floating offshore wind farm off Japan.
The floating wind farm would be based on BW Ideol's patented Damping Pool technology.
Paul De La Guérivière, CEO of BW Ideol, said: "We are pleased to keep on building a multi-GW project portfolio in Japan and add this project to our existing agreements for commercial-scale projects with other leading Japanese developers and utilities, confirming our unique position in this strategic market."
Japan's offshore wind projects are currently being developed under the Act on Promoting the Utilization of Sea Areas for the Development of Marine Renewable Energy Power Generation Facilities, and it is said that the potential of floating offshore wind turbines is three times greater than that of fixed bottom offshore wind as waters around Japan tend to quickly become very deep a few km from shore, Ideol said.
While dubbed the country's largest refiner, Eneos is not a newcomer in the renewables world. It has in its portfolio large solar plants, wind farms, and biomass plants.
In the offshore wind power business, ENEOS participated in a project off the coast of Taiwan in April 2019, and in September 2020, ENEOS participated in the development of projects off the coast of Happo Town and Noshiro City in Akita Prefecture. In addition, in June 2021, ENEOS was selected as the operator of a floating offshore wind power generation project off the coast of Goto City in Nagasaki Prefecture.