Japanese Hitachi Zosen Proposes $1.5 Billion Offshore Wind Farms

Industrial machinery maker Hitachi Zosen Corp. is leading a group including Toshiba and JFE Holdings Inc. that plans to build $1.5 billion of offshore wind farms in Japan.

The seven-member group will complete 7.5MW of pilot plants by 2016. They will then build wind farms with a combined capacity of 300MW over 10 years, as Hitachi Zosen’s Tokyo-based spokesman,Tomomitsu Yamamoto,told Bloomberg by telephone.

The Japan Weather Association, Sumitomo Electric Industries Ltd., Toa Corp. and Toyo Construction Co. are other members of the group. The group may form a special purpose company and seek funds for the project, according to the Hitachi Zosen website.

Japan’s government introduced incentives in July to promote investments in clean energy. The program’s feed-in tariff for wind is 23.1 yen per kilowatt-hour for 20 years, almost double the market rate for industrial users.