BW Ideol has signed an agreement with Japan’s ENEOS Corporation to jointly develop a commercial-scale floating offshore wind farm off Japan.

The wind farm will be based on BW Ideol’s Damping Pool technology. The company is the only floating technology provider with two full-scale assets in operation in France and Japan.

ENEOS has been involved in the offshore wind through projects off the coast of Taiwan in April 2019, and in September 2020, 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.

Paul De La Guérivière, CEO of BW Ideol, commented: “This collaboration confirms once again that our two-leg strategy of providing a proven technology and investing in the co-development of a project is extremely relevant in the context of a fast-accelerating new industry.”

Japan’s offshore wind projects are currently being developed under the Act on Promoting the Utilisation 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.