Japan’s TEPCO Renewable Power has made its first investment in a foreign wind market, today (Wednesday) annoucing the takeover of Scotland-headquartered floating project specialist Flotation Energy, for an undisclosed amount.
The acquisition will include stakes in the bottom-fixed 480MW Morecambe in the Irish Sea and 100MW White Cross floating development in the Celtic Sea, as well as a further 13 separate projects totaling more than 12GW across the UK, Ireland, Taiwan, Japan and Australia.
“Going forward, TEPCO, together with Flotation Energy, will obtain know-how and technologies for operating in the offshore wind business through the design, construction and O&M [operations and maintenance] of actual projects,” said TEPCO Renewable Power president Masashi Nagasawa
“Together we will be involved in the early stages of development of a global pipeline, in order to actively develop offshore wind power projects in Japan and overseas. Through these initiatives TEPCO will harness the power of offshore wind to help create a clean and sustainable carbon neutral society.”
Floatation Energy CEO Lord Nicol Stephen said: "This new partnership between Scotland and Japan represents a major investment by TEPCO. It will allow us to move forward quickly with our existing projects and to kick start new opportunities right around the world.
“Climate change is the biggest challenge facing our planet and helping to deliver a clean, green electricity network has always been Flotation Energy's goal.”
Flotation Energy – through a joint venture deal with the Spanish Cobra Group – was part of the development consortium that built the 50MW Kincardine project, currently the world’s biggest floating wind farm.
TEPCO is seperately backing development, along with Shell and RWE, of the Stiesdal Offshore TetraSpar floating wind concept, which is being prototype-tested off Norway.
Consultancy DNV calculates floating projects currently make up over 15% of the total offshore wind deployment in the pipeline for switch-on by mid-century, equal to some 264GW of the 1,750GW slated to be installed.
