JFE工程将成为日本首家国产海上风电单桩供应商，但对JFE控股短线增量有限

TOKYO -- Japan's JFE Engineering will start supplying the steel tubes that hold up offshore wind farms, a first for a Japanese company and a further step toward the country's goal of establishing a homegrown supply chain for wind power.
The development comes a year after a consortium formed by the trading house Mitsubishi Corp. and Chubu Electric Power sent shock waves through the industry when its announced its withdrawal from three offshore wind projects.
JFE Engineering will manufacture monopiles -- cylindrical structures inserted into the seabed that prop up offshore wind turbines above the water -- at its factory in Kasaoka, a city in Okayama prefecture. The monopiles will start being shipped as soon as September to a consortium led by the energy company JERA, which is developing a wind farm off the coast of Akita prefecture.
To date, all monopiles used in Japan's offshore wind power projects have been manufactured in Europe or China. JFE Engineering will be the first Japanese firm to supply domestically manufactured monopiles, which account for 10% of the total construction costs of offshore wind farms.
JFE Engineering's operation will include both the manufacturing and transportation of the monopiles. For transport, the company will work with Japanese marine shipper Mitsui O.S.K. Lines.
The decision by the Mitsubishi-Chubu Electric consortium to pull out of the three offshore wind projects last year came amid soaring costs. Because key components would be obtained overseas, the projects were impacted by inflation, unfavorable exchange rates and surging material and labor costs. The price tag for construction more than doubled from initial estimates.
Those wind projects were the first to be put up by the Japanese government for bidding. After the withdrawal of the Mitsubishi-Chubu Electric consortium, officials revised the bidding process to prevent a domino effect of exits.
In June 2026, the government unveiled new guidelines underscoring that the establishment of a domestic supply chain for the procurement and maintenance of wind turbine components would be a critical criteria for accepting bids. Previously, the evaluation of bids was heavily weighted toward pricing.
For offshore wind turbines that began operation off Akita prefecture around 2022, the domestic content was estimated to be roughly 20%. The government aims to increase the domestic procurement ratio to 65% by 2040.
JFE Engineering's monopile manufacturing will bring Japan one step closer toward domestic production of wind farms. The company invested 40 billion yen ($251 million) to launch the Kasaoka plant in 2024, its first in 54 years. The facility has the capacity to produce 50 monopiles a year.
Although JFE Engineering is a new entrant to the offshore wind power sector, the company has over 100 years' worth of experience in bridge construction. JFE Engineering will tap its expertise in making giant steel tubes with a coating that remains intact for extended periods.
The curved steel plates to be used in the monopiles were specially developed by sister company JFE Steel. JFE Engineering and JFE Steel jointly developed technology that decreases the number of welds needed for the steel, leading to lower costs and shorter manufacturing timeframes.
JFE Shoji, a trading company within the JFE group, will be responsible for managing the supply chain for steel materials and other components.
"Although this is our first time manufacturing monopiles, we have assembled personnel with the technology to mass-produce large structures, and we have reached a certain level of technical expertise in a short period of time," said Shinichi Toda, senior managing executive officer at JFE Engineering.
Toda mentioned that the supply chain will be less susceptible to global shocks, such as the ongoing de facto blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.
"We can store [monopiles] in the factory and ship them immediately when requested," said Toda.
Expectations remain high for offshore wind power in Akita prefecture. In the prefectural capital Akita, U.S. startup Bitgrit will join a local company in constructing one of Japan's largest data centers. Because data centers consume enormous amounts of electricity, the project anticipates procuring power from planned offshore wind turbines.
A continuous pipeline of orders above a certain scale is necessary for establishing a supply chain of domestically produced components that are price competitive. But the schedule for future wind farm bidding is up in the air. There is no firm date set for the rebidding of the projects from which the Mitsubishi-Chubu Electric consortium exited.
To expand the volume of orders, JFE Engineering said it will actively respond to overseas projects.
In addition to components for wind turbines fixed to the seabed, JFE Engineering also plans to manufacture parts for floating wind turbines. The company will build a dedicated site that will manufacture platforms, capable of making at least 24 such components a year by 2030.
Because Japan's coastline lacks shallow seabeds, floating offshore wind turbines would be a better fit for the country. But many floating wind farm projects are currently only in the field-testing stage, with commercialization remaining uncertain.
Despite progress in creating a native supply chain for offshore wind farms, the wind turbines themselves are supplied by international companies like Siemens, Vestas and GE Vernova. No Japanese companies make turbines, which account for 40% of the construction costs.
In July, Vestas announced it would establish a plant in the Japanese city of Kitakyushu to make specialized equipment for wind turbine assembly. In a preliminary agreement with the Japanese government, Vestas plans to start fully assembling the nacelle -- the component housing the wind generator -- on Japanese soil by fiscal 2039. But "nothing has been decided at this point," according to a representative at Vestas' Japanese subsidiary.