Osaka University in Japan is beginning a joint research project with civil engineering company Toda to develop the world’s largest floating wind turbine.

As Nikkei Asia reports, the goal is to have an experimental wind turbine capable of outputting 15 megawatts. In order to achieve such high output, the blade span of the new turbine is expected to be roughly 200 meters, making it about three times larger than existing wind turbines.

Japan to Create the World’s Largest Floating Wind Turbine | PCMag

The US East coast is unique in having a huge shelf to do offshore wind on, that’s easy to attach to. To really get Wind powers’ full potential, floating solutions like this are needed, as there are so many more places in the world that can work.

Japan is in a current energy bind as well, they have very little land, their power system is largely Coal and Natural Gas, all of which they import. Nuclear was out of favor the last two decades, which has made the current LNG price spikes hugely expensive for the country. Floating wind is a bet they need to pay off, because otherwise it’s very unclear how they meet their climate goals.

I also wonder if their reliance on Coal is one of the reasons the Japanese Government has been so luke warm on EVs, because they don’t really have any way to grow their electricity grid effectively.