News

2018.12.3

Participated in the 7th FUKUSHIMA Renewable Energy Industrial Fair 2018

“The 7th Fukushima Renewable Energy Industry Fair” was held in the Big Palette Fukushima in Koriyama from November 7th to 8th in 2018. According to the organizer, 7,015 people in total visited the venue in two days.

Fukushima offshore wind power consortium exhibited in order to introduce the world’s first floating offshore wind farm demonstration project broadly to people in and out of Japan. Approximately 1,400 people visited the exhibition booth of the consortium in two days.

At the booth of the Fukushima offshore wind consortium, a large display showed movies of the construction record of the demonstration project, and the power generation scene of all three types of floating wind turbines. The model of the advanced spar floater with 5MW wind turbine was shown as well as the real intermediate buoy and riser cable.

There were many questions from the visitors about the removal of 7MW wind turbine which was recently reported by newspapers and television, and some people misunderstood as withdrawal of project. Currently, the consortium is evaluating safety, reliability and economic efficiency of each wind turbine and has already obtained various data including 7MW wind turbine. The operation and maintenance cost of the world’s first large hydraulic drive train has been recognized to be high, so that 7MW wind turbine will be removed before commercialization. We explained to the visitors not only that we will continue the demonstration of 2MW and 5MW wind turbines, but also that we are planning to consider commercialization.

One of the features of this year’s industrial fair was that younger visitors increased and some high school students asked some questions about the structure of intermediate buoys manufactured by the local companies and the method of power transmission in the sea. Also, some college students who have decided their course for renewable energy were asking earnestly about the advantages of wind power and future prospects for offshore wind.
It is not until the seventh exhibition that it is well realized that local younger generations are becoming familiar with renewable energy including offshore floating wind power as a new choice of occupation among them.