Mitsubishi Corporation and Eneco have reached an agreement to establish a new fifty-fifty joint venture that will invest in Belgian Norther offshore wind farm.
The news comes after the two companies won the Dutch Borssele III & IV tender as part of a consortium also comprising Van Oord and Shell.
The new joint venture will hold 50% of shares in Norther, while the remaining 50% will be held by energy and technology services provider Nethys of Belgium.
The Norther offshore wind farm will be developed, constructed and operated by a partnership comprising theses three companies, Mitsubishi said.
The project will feature 44 MHI Vestas 8.4MW wind turbines installed in the North Sea, 23km off the coast of Belgium and at water depth of 20m, generating enough energy to supply nearly 400,000 households, once operational.
Construction is scheduled to start in January 2017, with operations set to commence in 2019.
The Norther project is Mitsubishi and Eneco’s second collaborative project after the Luchterduinen offshore wind farm in the Netherlands, which started operations at the end of 2015.
“MC’s focus on the development of offshore wind projects is part of a policy to increase its presence in the renewable energies sector, and part of efforts to contribute to the realization of a “low-carbon society”. Having already installed a team of offshore wind experts, MC is now taking greater initiative to develop, construct and operate wind energy projects as it evolves its business model from investing to managing in accordance with Midterm Corporate Strategy 2018, the company’s current management strategy,” Mitsubishi Corporation said in a press release.