3 Japan Entities to Invest in U.K. Offshore Wind Power Biz

August 14, 2018

Tokyo- Electric Power Development Co. or J-Power, and Kansai Electric Power Co. said Monday that they will join a large wind power plant project being undertaken off Britain by major German power firm Innogy SE.

The two Japanese firms, as well as the government-backed Development Bank of Japan, will hold a total of about 40 pct of shares in Innogy Renewables UK Ltd., a unit of Innogy.

Specifically, J-Power and the DBJ will own a combined stake of about 25 pct in Innogy Renewables UK, and Kansai Electric about 16 pct.

It will be the first time for a Japanese electric power company to invest in an overseas offshore wind power project.

J-Power and Kansai Electric plan to acquire know-how on the construction, maintenance and operations of a wind power plant, aiming to utilize it for their future businesses in Japan.

The total costs for the Innogy initiative, one of the largest offshore wind power generation projects in the world, are expected to reach 300 billion yen, and the three Japanese entities plan to put up some 100 billion yen of the total.

The project calls for building 90 wind turbines by 2021, with each capable of generating about 95,000 kilowatts of electricity, for a total of 860,000 kilowatts.

The British government is set to buy all of the electricity to be generated by the plant at fixed prices for 15 years. Jiji Press