Belgian marine engineering company DEME and Japanese marine contractor Penta-Ocean have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) over a comprehensive cooperation for the construction of offshore wind farms in Japan.

Combining DEME’s extensive experience and technological know-how in Europe with that of Penta-Ocean in Japan will make a significant contribution to the expansion of Japan’s nascent offshore wind industry, DEME thinks, pointing to some special circumstances in the island nation’s Ocean environment.

“Offshore wind projects can face very complex subsoils due to mixed sandy and rocky, sometimes soft grounds, together with severe metocean conditions like typhoons, bomb cyclones, etc. In addition, seismic forces need to be considered,” DEME stated.

Japan’s offshore wind sector is taking off after the country’s parliament last year passed long-awaited legislation for wind at sea, with first tenders expected to take place this year. The island nation targets to have 10GW of offshore capacity in operation by 2030, up from only 65MW now.

As a first step, DEME and Penta-Ocean will start with the introduction and development of advanced technologies that are deemed useful and beneficial to the Japanese market, leading to joint execution of offshore wind farm projects in Japan.