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In Japan's electricity sector wind power generates a small but increasing proportion of the country's electricity, as the installed capacity has been growing in recent years. According to industry observers, the 2011 Japanese nuclear accidents are pushing wind power to the forefront as a safer and more reliable alternative to meet the country's future electricity requirements. None of Japan's commercial wind turbines, totaling over 2300 MW in nameplate capacity, failed as a result of the 2011 TÅhoku earthquake and tsunami, including the Kamisu offshore wind farm directly hit by the tsunami.
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It has been estimated that Japan has the potential for 144 GW for onshore wind and 608 GW of offshore wind capacity.
Notable projects
The Shin Izumo Wind Farm owned by Eurus Energy is the largest wind farm in Japan as of 2011, comprising 26 turbines with a total nameplate capacity of 78 megawatts.
As of September 2011, Japan plans to build a pilot floating wind farm, with six 2-megawatt turbines, off the Fukushima coast. After the evaluation phase is complete in 2016, "Japan plans to build as many as 80 floating wind turbines off Fukushima by 2020."
In 2013, a floating offshore wind turbine was tested about 1 km off the coast of the island of Kabajima in Nagasaki Prefecture. It was a part of a Japanese government test project. This was the first of its kind in Japan.
As of 2017, the feed-in tariff per kWh are 21 yen for onshore and 36 yen for offshore.
Statistics
In 2015, Japan's historical installed wind power capacity in megawatts (MW) was: