The Japan Wind Power Association (JWPA) has formed an offshore wind task force with the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) to accelerate the sector’s development off the Asian island nation, which is targeting having an 10GW installed and turning by 2030 but currently has only 65MW in operation.

A JWPA spokesman told Recharge some 20-30 “major Japanese and foreign players” have committed to joining the body, which will focus in the first instance on cost reduction initiatives to boost the economics of offshore wind off Japan.

“Japan has 65.6MW of offshore wind capacity, including five floating turbines totalling 19MW. However, the full scale of Japan’s offshore wind potential has yet to be unlocked due to regulatory and industrial bottlenecks, both of which this task force aims to address,” he said.

JWPA president Jin Kato said he believed 2020 would be “a turning point” for offshore wind in Japan after the parliament last year passed legislation clearing the way for first tenders to take place this year to underpin long-term development of the sector.

“Considering the high population density and limited land availability of the country, it simply makes sense to take advantage of the power potential of offshore wind on Japan’s 29,751km coastline to drive the country’s energy transition.

“Developing this industry will be an important boost to Japan’s economy, it is estimated that by 2030 offshore wind could create direct investments of ¥5-6trn ($45-55bn), generate 80,000-90,000 new jobs and decrease Japan’s carbon emissions by 71 million tons,” said Kato.

“It is therefore the ideal moment to form the Japan Offshore Wind Task Force and accelerate the momentum that has been developing for the industry over the past few years.”

The task force, which will be co-chaired by Kato and GWEC’s Alastair Dutton, expects to “engage regularly” with Japan’s Ministry of Energy, Transport & Industry to share best practices, conduct studies “and bring together all the most relevant stakeholders”.

A study scoping the potential for cost-reduction in the Japanese offshore wind sector will be released in October.

Earlier this month, a group led by Japanese industrial giant Marubeni gave the green light for first work to start on what could be the country’s debut utility-scale offshore wind farms to enter service.