The largest of three floating wind turbines installed as part of Japan’s pioneering Fukushima Forward floating wind demonstration project is to be towed to port for decommissioning due to high operation and maintenance costs, according to reports.

The 7MW Mitsubishi unit, christened Shimpuu — which, uniquely, was built around a hydraulics-powered technology known as digital displacement transmission rather than direct-drive or geared drivetrains — had been “deemed unprofitable due to multiple malfunctions” impacting on the machine’s uptime, a government source told The Japan Times.