Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP) have entered into a 50-50 joint venture regarding the development of offshore wind projects in Hokkaido, Japan.
"The partners have high ambitions to be significant parties in the Japan offshore wind market which is expected to experience significant growth. The partnership will jointly develop projects in Hokkaido, where conditions are attractive for offshore wind," CIP
MHI is already greatly present in the offshore wind space through the joint venture MHI Vestas Offshore Wind, a specialist supplier of offshore wind turbines.
"As part of its growth strategy, focusing on the entire value chain of the offshore wind power business, MHI has agreed with CIP to participate in the Japan offshore wind market," MHI said.
CIP is a global fund management company within renewable infrastructure investments established in 2012, having seven funds with approximately EUR 10 billion under management, investing in offshore wind, onshore wind, power transmission, biomass, “waste to energy” and solar projects. CIP entered the Japanese market in 2018, with the ambition to contribute to Japan’s delivery on the renewable energy target.
"MHI’s partnership with CIP, a company with extensive experience in offshore wind projects in the world, is a very meaningful starting point for MHI’s offshore wind generation business, which is one of our growth strategies. MHI is excited to develop the offshore wind generation business through a partnership with CIP and by leveraging MHI’s long experience in the wind turbine OEM business and onshore wind generation business in Japan and overseas”, says Kentaro Hosomi, President and CEO, Energy Systems, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries.
"We are excited to announce the partnership with MHI for the joint development in the Hokkaido area. This is an ideal partnership combining the expertise of the partners. MHI brings innovative technical solutions and extensive local knowledge where CIP brings global state of the art offshore wind development and investment experience to the partnership”, says Michael Hannibal, Partner in Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners.
While offshore wind projects in Japan have yet to reach utility-scale capacity, the Japan Wind Power Association said on Thursday, as reported by Reuters, that it aims to expand the country's offshore wind power installed capacity to 10 gigawatts(GW) in 2030 and 30-45 GW in 2040.
"Japan has huge potential for building large-scale offshore wind farms, 128 GW potential for fixed-bottom and 424 GW for floating," Jin Kato, president of the JWPA, told a news conference. Read more here.