5/14/2019 Solar Power Combined With Japan's Largest Commercial Wind Farm in Fukuoka - Solar Power Plant Business

Solar Power Combined With Japan's Largest Commercial Wind Farm in Fukuoka
With aim to establish 'offshore wind farm' base

Kenji Kaneko, Nikkei BP Intelligence Group, CleanTech Institute 2018/03/27 19:54

3.3MW-output giant wind turbines start operating

Hibikinada District in Wakamatsu-ku, Kitakyushu City, Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan, is a vast landfill on the coast
covering about 2,000ha.

As you make a right turn on Route 495 and cross a bridge after driving for about 30 minutes on an expressway from
the central part of Kitakyushu City and through Wakato Tunnel, you will find solar panels orderly arrayed across an
area on your right and two huge wind turbines rotating in front of the horizon of Hibikinada on your left. The rated
capacity of the turbines is 3.3MW each. At this moment, this is the largest wind farm for commercial use operating in
Japan.

The rotating diameter of the blades is 112m. The tower is 86m tall, and from the ground to the top of the blade is
140m. In Hibikinada District, 10 other large turbines with an output of 1.5MW each are operating along the coast.
Even taking the perspective into consideration, the hugeness of these two turbines with more than double the capacity
of the smaller turbines can be realized (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1: Large wind turbines with an output of 3.3MW each can be seen on the left beyond the
bridge in Hibikinada District. (source: Nikkei BP)

These two wind turbines are part of the "Hibikinada Wind Energy Research Park," a hybrid-type power plant run by
Japan Renewable Energy Corp (hereafter JRE, Minato-ku, Tokyo) and Hokutaku Co Ltd (Asahikawa City,

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Hokkaido). JRE is one of Japan's most experienced companies in mega-solar and other renewable energy-based
power generation developments. Hokutaku is also one of Japan's most experienced companies in the maintenance of
wind farms. This plant's power producer is "Hibikinada Wind Energy Research Park Joint Venture (JV)" financed by
these companies.

Kitakyushu aims to become a 'wind power industry base'

This plant is referred to as "hybrid" because it has a solar power generation facility in addition to these large wind
turbines. The power generated by these two kinds of renewable energy-based facilities is boosted to a higher voltage
at one substation before being transmitted and sold to Kyushu Electric Power Co Inc's (Kyuden) grid using the feed-
in tariff (FIT) scheme.

The wind farm facility with a total output of 6.6MW combining the two turbines and the solar power generation
facility with a panel capacity of about 3MW separately acquired approval from the Ministry of Economy, Trade and
Industry (METI). Its grid capacity totals 8.6MW, combining 6.6MW of wind power and 2MW of solar power (Fig. 2).

Fig. 2: The Hibikinada Wind Energy Research Park that combines wind and solar power. In
the upper center is the park's mega-solar site. (source: JRE)

Toko Electrical Construction Co Ltd designed and constructed the overall site, while Vestas Wind Systems A/S and
LSIS Co Ltd supplied the wind farm facility and solar panels, respectively. PV inverters for solar power generation
are products of Toshiba Mitsubishi-Electric Industrial Systems Corp (TMEIC). Construction began in February 2017,
and the solar facility and the wind facility started operation Sept 1, 2017, and Jan 1, 2018, respectively.

This project was selected in a public call for "projects to promote integration of the wind farm-related industry in
Hibikinada District, Wakamatsu-ku, Kitakyushu City" conducted by Kitakyushu City. This project will be part of
Kitakyushu City's approach to becoming an "offshore wind farm industry base" in the future (Fig. 3).

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Fig. 3: LSIS solar panels and TMEIC PV inverters (source: Nikkei BP)

Accumulating expertise for offshore wind farms

Kitakyushu City is planning to establish Hibikinada District as "a base of offshore wind farms in Asia" in three
phases. Phase 1 is a public call for wind turbine verification projects. Phase 2 is the invitation of offshore wind farms
to Hibikinada, and Phase 3 is the establishment of an integrated base of offshore wind farms.

'Hybrid' technology lowers business risk

Kitakyushu City recruited "wind-solar hybrid" verification projects from the public because setting up two large wind
turbines as an offshore wind farm in Hibikinada District was not likely to attract private enterprises so much in terms
of investment efficiency in the power selling business.

Stationary foundations with PC piles assembled in a parallel cross pattern

The mega-solar site of the Hibikinada Wind Energy Research Park is located across a public road from the wind
turbines. Two other mega-solar plants had already begun operation in this area before this solar power plant of the
Research Park was set up between them.

As this area was originally a landfill, full-fledged land reclamation was difficult. Accordingly, a stationary
foundation/mounting system dubbed "Solar Mounter" was adopted (Fig. 4). The Solar Mounter was a joint
development by Toko Electrical Construction, Kumagaigumi Co Ltd and Aizawa Concrete Corp (Tomakomai City,
Hokkaido).

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Fig. 4: The "Solar Mounter" using H-shaped PC piles (source: Nikkei BP)

The stationary foundation is formed by placing "H-shaped PC piles," multi-purpose high-strength concrete piles, at a
certain interval in the north-south direction of an array (a unit of solar panel installation) and assembling other PC
piles on them in the west-east direction like a railway, so the upper and lower PC piles would make a parallel cross
pattern.

2 'sub meters' to calculate power generation rate

The power generated by two large wind turbines and the mega-solar plant is combined and boosted to 22kV at the
grid substation in the mega-solar area before being transmitted and sold to Kyuden.

At such hybrid power plants, it becomes a challenge how to understand the amount of power generation by solar and
wind facilities, which are sold at different unit prices. At the Hibikinada Wind Energy Research Park, sub meters that
measure the amount of power generation were set up at each solar and wind power generation facility in addition to
the electric power meters (main meters) that measure the amount of synthesized output.

However, the combined amount of power generation measured by the two sub meters does not agree with the amount
of power generation measured by the main meters. This is because, in addition to system losses while transmitting
power, the amount of self-consumed power is offset. The amount of self-consumed power is the startup current
required when starting the blades and what is used for air conditioning to maintain the temperature inside the PV
inverter housing at the mega-solar plant.

As a result of discussions with Kyuden, the plant decided to distribute the amount of power generation measured by
the main meters at a proportion of the amounts of solar and wind power generation measured by the sub meters. For
example, if the proportion is 7:3 in the amounts of wind and solar power generation, power sales for 1,000kWh will
be distributed to wind power of 700kWh and solar power of 300kWh, and the power sale amount will be calculated
by multiplying the values by a unit price of each power.

At the mega-solar site, you can find four meters including general meters for the amount of power sale and purchase
as well as sub meters that indicate both the amounts of solar and wind power generation (Fig. 5).

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Fig. 5: Main meters and sub meters installed (source: Nikkei BP)

Valuable data toward 'cross power generation'

The direct reason why the plant became hybrid-type lies in reduced business risk, but "The hybrid-type plant can also
provide data valuable when verifying the effectiveness of cross power generation being expected at mega-solar plants
across Japan," said Yoshida, vice president of Hokutaku.

In "cross power generation," a wind farm is additionally constructed within the grid capacity of an existing mega-
solar plant, so wind power can make up for a deficiency in the grid capacity during the night and on a cloudy day, for
example. If the amount of power generation combining solar and wind powers exceeds the grid capacity, the amount
will be kept under the capacity by limiting the wind power output.

In the case of the Hibikinada Wind Energy Research Park, both solar and wind power generation facilities

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individually acquired a separate grid capacity, within which they can sell power generated at their maximum output.

"We can understand how much wind power should be limited by simulating cross power generation," Yoshida said.
"It is beneficial that we can accurately evaluate the amount of power generation to limit, which can only be estimated
in real cross power generation."

Such hybrid-type power plants are likely to provide significant data for assessing the effectiveness of "cross power
generation" and the efficiency of grid use by "connect & manage," which METI is promoting, through their data of
verifying the effect of standardizing output when both solar and wind power generation facilities are constructed in
the same site.

Facility overview

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