The Marubeni Corporation, through the special purpose company Akita Offshore Corporation, has decided to implement the construction, operation, and maintenance of offshore wind farms at Akita Port and Noshiro Port in Akita Prefecture ) jointly with OBAYASHI CORPORATION, Tohoku Sustainable & Renewable Energy Co.Inc., Cosmo Eco Power Co., Ltd., The Kansai Electric Power Co., Inc., Chubu Electric Power Co., Inc., The Akita Bank, Ltd., Ohmori Co., Ltd., Sawakigumi Corporation, Kyowa Oil Co., Ltd., Katokensetsu.Co.Ltd, Kanpu Co., Ltd., and Sankyo Co., Ltd..
The Offshore Wind Farms are comprised of the bottom fixed offshore wind farm and the onshore substation and transmission lines and together are expected to be the first large-scale offshore wind power project in Japan established on a commercial basis.
The loan consists of project finance provided by multiple domestic and foreign financial institutions with MUFG Bank, Ltd., Mizuho Bank, Ltd., and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation jointly acting as the joint mandated lead arrangers.
The Offshore Wind Farm Project is a project to construct, operate and maintain the offshore wind farms with approximately 140 MW in total electric power to be sold to Tohoku Electric Power Co., Inc. for 20 years under a power purchase agreement based on the feed-in tariff program.
The construction of the onshore substations and transmission lines is expected to start in February 2020 and the commercial operations are expected to start in 2022. During operation, Noshiro Port will be the base port for operations and maintenance.
