Japan's Jera sets up floating wind investment company with France's Ademe, Ideol

London — Japan's largest power utility, Jera, is to team up with Ademe Investissement and Ideol of France to finance the development of at least 2 GW of floating offshore wind projects, the companies said June 22.

Upcoming tenders for commercial-scale floating offshore wind farms in Scotland and France and initiatives in Japan and the US "confirm the acceleration of floating wind," they said.

A joint investment company would look to finance several projects "across the globe" over the next five years, using Ideol's Damping Pool technology.

Ideol's 2-MW Floatgen floating offshore wind turbine has been up and running at the Sem-Rev test site in French Atlantic waters since September 2018, achieving a 66.3% capacity factor in February.

This highlighted "one of the fundamental arguments in favor of accelerating the commercial-scale deployment of floating offshore wind: taking full advantage of the best wind resources one can find further offshore and without any depth constraints," it said.

In May 2019, the Hibiki floating wind turbine based on Ideol technology was inaugurated by project owners NEDO, Japan's new energy and industrial technology organization.

Ademe Investissement is a French state-owned company supporting new infrastructure technologies.