2024.04.25
【Article】Recent Trends and Law Amendments Regarding Offshore Wind-Power Generation Business
2020.03.14 ナレッジ
3. Trends in offshore wind-power generation business within general sea areas
(1) Designation of promoted areas and announcement of Opinions on the Guidelines for Occupation Through the Public Bidding Process (Draft)
On July 30, 2019, the Agency for Natural Resources and Energy under the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, and the Bureau of Port and Harbor under the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, announced 11 areas (6 areas are promising areas) as areas considered to have progressed to a certain level of preparations to be designated as promoted areas. In connection with four of such areas, preparations were immediately started for wind conditions and geological surveys by the organizations of the council and the national government.
Promising areas where surveys and the like were to be started immediately include: (i) Noshiro City, Akita Prefecture, (ii) offshore area of Mitane Town and Oga City, and offshore area of Yurihonjo City, Akita Prefecture (north and south sides), (iii) offshore area of Choshi City, Chiba Prefecture, and (iv) offshore area of Goto City, Nagasaki Prefecture.
It can be observed that the promoted areas are concentrated in places with particularly good wind conditions, for example, on the Japan Sea coast such as Akita and Aomori.
Source of reference: Procurement Price Calculation Committee. (February 4, 2020),
“In regard to the Guidelines for Occupation through the Public Bidding Process Under the Offshore Renewable Energy Usage Act”, page 5
(part of its descriptions is omitted, and an English translation thereof has been added by us).
Among the above-mentioned sea areas, on December 6, 2019, in relation to the offshore sea area of Goto City, Nagasaki Prefecture, the draft designation of promoted areas was publicly announced and made available for public viewing pursuant to Article 8, Paragraph 3 of the Offshore Renewable Energy Usage Act. On December 27, 2019, the offshore sea area of Goto City, Nagasaki Prefecture was designated as a promoted area pursuant to Article 8, Paragraph 1 of the Offshore Renewable Energy Usage Act and publicly announced pursuant to Paragraph 6 of the same Article.
Further, on February 4, 2020, the Procurement Price Calculation Committee published their Opinions on the Guidelines for Occupation Through the Public Bidding Process Under the Offshore Renewable Energy Usage Act pertaining to the offshore sea area of Goto City, Nagasaki Prefecture (Draft), which includes the issues and opinions discussed on the matters pertaining to Article 13, Paragraph 2, Item 1 and Items 4 to 10 of the Offshore Renewable Energy Usage Act; namely, matters concerning the standards for the output amount of power generation facilities and the upper limit of supply prices, etc.. The opinions presented in the Opinions on the Guidelines for Occupation Through the Public Bidding Process Under Offshore Renewable Energy Usage Act (draft) are as follows: (i) the category of the target power generation facilities (Article 13, Paragraph 2, Item 1 of the Offshore Renewable Energy Usage Act) will be the floating wind-turbine type; (ii) in regard to the standards for the output amount (Item 4 of the same Paragraph), while the maximum received power will be set as 21,000 kW, there will be no upper limit and the lower limit will be 16.8 MW; (iii) the upper limit of the supply price (Item 7 of the same Paragraph) will be 36 yen per kWh; (iv) the procurement period (Item 9 of the same Paragraph) will be 20 years, in which the business commencement date will be set to within up to 8 years from the selected date and the procurement period will be shortened if it exceeds the business commencement date; and other matters such as the standards for the participants in the public bidding process and the bidding deposits.
(2) Provision of information on designation of promoted areas
The guidelines for designation of promoted areas stipulates that the designation process for promoted areas will be implemented each year. As a process for the upcoming 2020 fiscal year, the acceptance of the provision of information from prefectures started on December 13, 2019, and the period for acceptance from the business operators planning offshore wind-power generation projects started on January 21, 2020. The information provided by the business operators will be treated as non-disclosure information in principle, and the information aimed to be provided by the business operators consists of five items: “Basic Information”, “Grid Connection-Related”, “Survey-Related”, “Base Port and Harbor”, and “Region-Related”. Such items are to be submitted in a designated format for the provision of information from business operators.
(3) Revision of the standards for offshore wind-power generation business
In order to facilitate offshore wind-power generation projects, the standards for offshore wind-power generation business in port and harbor areas have already been formulated and published; however, with the introduction of an occupation system for general sea areas under the Offshore Renewable Energy Usage Act, discussions regarding the standards pertaining to offshore wind-power generation business within general sea areas are currently underway.In the future, deliberations on the revision of the standards will be held, and a revised version of the standards that can also be applied to offshore wind-power generation business within general sea areas will be formulated and published in 2020.
4. Conclusion
The Japanese government has considered increasing the number of promoted areas that have been put into operation by 2030 to five as one of its KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) and will designate promoted areas based thereon. Therefore, the start of operations in five promoted areas by the end of 2030 will be an indicator of whether or not certain results have been achieved in one of the most important measures by the Japanese government, and offshore wind-power generation business will be promoted in order to achieve this goal .In the future, projects conducted through a public bidding process within general sea areas are expected to become the mainstream of large-scale offshore wind-power generation projects in Japan. It will be necessary to submit the occupation plans through the public bidding process pursuant to the guidelines for occupation through the public bidding process for such offshore wind-power generation projects to be conducted. At present, the details for submission of the occupation plans through the public bidding process are not clear from the guidelines for operation of the public bidding process. For this reason, in addition to referencing previous public bidding processes under the Port and Harbor Act, the guidelines for occupation through the public bidding process within the offshore sea area of Goto City, Nagasaki Prefecture, whose formulation and publication are believed to be the fastest, are expected to serve as useful references and therefore draw attention.
This English article was written in cooperation with Ms. Xiaojing Zhou, an Associate at TMI Associates.
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*Eye catch Photo by Matt Artz on Unsplash
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