No. 25: Hitachi Zosen participates in the facility construction of offshore wind farming (December 5, 2011)

HitachiZosen will enter the offshore wind farming business next year. The company developed its own wind generation plant that costs 30% less than the existing wind generation plants by employing the self-developed floating body. It will conduct the substantiate experiment starting 2014 and commercialize the generation plant toward 2016. The price of a plant is expected to be 2-3 billion yen.

Hitachi’s plant is the floating body type that has fixed windmills on it. This type is in the stage of substantiative experiment worldwide, and IHI is also developing this type of wind generation plant. Utilizing its own offshore engineering technology, Hitachi will develop an original floating body that is wider horizontally as compared with products from competitors. By increasing the stability of the windmills, the technology can simplify the construction to moor the floating body. Japan has a wide exclusive economic zone because it is surrounded by the sea, and lots of areas are supposed to be available for offshore wind farming. It is estimated that offshore wind farming will have an output of 13 million kW in 2030, about two times more output estimated for land wind generation.