Latest on Offshore Wind in Japan: the ‘EEZ Law’

The Japanese Parliament has passed the so-called ‘EEZ Law’ on 3 June 2025, which amended the law commonly referred to as the Marine Renewable Energy Law¹ allowing the installation of offshore wind farms in Japan's exclusive economic zone (EEZ). The bill was submitted to the ordinary Diet session last year but was scrapped due to the resignation of the then Prime-Minister Kishida Cabinet and the dissolution of the House of Representatives in the general election.

Before the revision, offshore wind farms can only be installed in territorial sea and inland waters, which as a general rule, is the sea areas extending 12 nautical miles from the baseline, as defined by the Law on the Territorial Waters and the Contiguous Zone based on the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea². The revised law has expanded to permit installation of offshore wind farms in EEZ waters (12–200 nautical miles). Before the enactment of the EEZ law, prefectural and the national government collectively have taken the initiative to designate sea areas to be developed, initiating from self-nomination by the local government. However, as EEZ is outside the jurisdiction of the prefectures, the national government will be solely in charge of designation of the areas.

Figure 1 Conceptual Diagram of Japan's Waters

The initial discussion on the law started two years ago, including the topic of possibilities for the two-step approach to be implemented in providing permission to develop the sea area, where the developers will have the liberty to submit plans for the wind farm in areas within the broader area designated by the Government. If there is any overlap of areas between the suggested plans from the developers, the government will grant a provisional permit to the most appropriate suggestion from the viewpoint of long-term, stable, and efficient implementation of the project. Then it is the responsibility of the provisional grantee to coordinate with fishermen and other relevant stakeholders of the sea area in question and conduct any additional surveys. As the shortcomings of the rules for Rounds 1-3 have become evident and revision is under discussion, the potential modification of the tender scheme to a two-step approach should be a welcoming change for the industry.

The plan, including the physical design of the wind farm, is revised based on the coordination with the relevant stakeholders and the detailed surveys conducted and submitted to the Government to be reviewed. The evaluation criteria for this process by the Government is expected to resemble that of the criteria for tender executed under the law covering territorial waters. To prevent stagnation in the permission process, a deadline is to be implemented for receiving the final permit for construction by the Government after being granted the provisional permit. The relevant authorities responsible for defense radar, major shipping routes, the marine environment and fisheries are to be consulted in advance, as well. The above-mentioned aspects are expected to be implemented in the law.

What is the significance of this law? Until now, only construction of offshore wind farms in the territorial water was allowed. Though the pipeline of projects under the current law may not look so discouraging (see Chart 1), there was growing concern on how to increase the areas nominated for future built-out of offshore wind farms. Extending the subjected area from territorial waters to EEZ, which Japan has 6th largest in the world of, ultimately expands the sea-area which offshore wind farms can be installed.

Recall the history of legislations enabling commercial installation of offshore wind farms in Japan originates in 2016, when the Port and Harbor Law was revised to allow 20-year sea-area lease for offshore wind farms. (The law was further revised in 2019 to extend the lease period to 30 years³) This Law only allowed installation of offshore wind farms within port and harbor areas which are usually near-shore, often with mediocre wind conditions. Then the landmark-legislation of Marine Renewable Energy Law was enforced in April 2019, allowing the installation of wind farms within the territorial waters. There is also a possibility for a developer to acquire permission to develop offshore wind projects under Prefectural Ordinances. However, in June 2019, the National government issued a guideline highly recommending that prefectural governments refrain from granting occupancy permits for projects of 30 MW or more, or for sea areas that may be designated as Promotion Zones⁴.

Since 2016, there have been eight auctions in port and harbor areas under Port and Harbor Law and three rounds of auctions under the Marine Renewable Energy Law. The latter law designates three stages, Preparation, Promising and Promotion Zones, and only when an area is designated as Promotion Zone, a public tender executed. Also with this regulation, the local government (city, town or village) nominates itself to be considered as the area to be developed for offshore wind, the governor provides the information to the national government and then the national government designates the area as Preparation Area (and some cases, Promising Area). However, self-nomination by the local government is often the result of developers requesting the local government to do so, after having spent time and effort on the preliminary work in the area, such as stakeholder management and/or physical surveys of the sea area, implying it has been the private players initiating potential sea areas to be developed. After an area is designated as either Preparation or Promising Zone, the Governor and the Minister establishes the regional council (tentative translation) among the relevant stakeholders.

With the five new areas designated as Preparation Zones in Tokyo announced on 26 June 2025, there are 35 areas listed in the pipeline, including the ten areas with auction already conducted with winners selected. Also as of 25 June 2025, two areas are listed as Promising Zones, Matsumae and Hiyama, are undergoing the administrative process to be indorsed as Promotion Zones which should lead to start of Round 4 auction⁵. Though the pipeline may seem encouraging, some of the areas are starting to show lack of progress in the local discussion and are not being able to convene the mandatory regional council meetings. With the national target of 30-45 GW of pipeline of offshore wind projects by 2040, nurturing of pipeline is essential and EEZ Law is expected to deliver more areas subject for consideration of offshore wind farm installation.

Chart 1 Status of Offshore Wind Pipeline as of 26 June 2025

Let us further examine the implication of the revised law allowing installation of offshore wind to EEZ boundary and the outlook for the development of offshore wind in Japan towards the above-mentioned pipeline target. The enactment of the EEZ Law is an important and a big step, however, there are multifaceted challenges that need to be overcome. Realizing the full potential of offshore wind in Japan will require a comprehensive policy design, stakeholder engagement, infrastructure, nurturing of the floating offshore wind supply chain and industry.

As stipulated in the Marine Renewable Energy Law for projects in territorial waters, regional council meeting is to be convened. How to define the local stakeholder is a challenge in the case of sea area beyond territorial waters, due to the lack of presence of the Prefectural Government which has played a crucial role in formulating the regional council for the projects in territorial waters. This is especially sensible in identifying the fishery community to be involved in the discussion from early stage of the project development. As was the case for all offshore wind projects so far, co-existence with the incumbent users, notably the fishery community, is a prerequisite and a scheme to involve them in decision making process is crucial. To explain the complexity in identifying the relevant stakeholders among the fishers, the fishing rights and permission scheme in Japan is explained below.

Within Japan's territorial waters and EEZ, fisheries are managed under a law called the “Fishery Law,” and various regulations are in place for the sound development of the fishery. Under the Law, “Fishery Rights” and “Permitted Fishery” are categorized based on size of fishing vessels, fishing zone, type of fish/shellfish, fishing season and etc. Fisheries in the sea area covered by the EEZ law are assumed to be Permitted Fishery, either Fishery Permitted by the Minister or the Governor⁶.

Figure 2 Permission Scheme Based on Fishery Law

The fishers of Fishery Permitted by the Governor are often individuals rather than Fishery Association/Cooperative as seen in areas with Fishery Rights and large corporations as seen in Fishery Permitted by the Minister and difficulties to identify and to engage in communication with the relevant parties are anticipated. With the current legislation governing fishery, challenges in acquiring the data on status quo on fishing activities in both licensed areas are also foreseen as there is currently no database overarches all fishing operations in Japan. The mandate to report to the Governor and the prefectural government varies from prefecture to prefecture and there is no uniform set of data from Fishery Permitted by the Governor. The Fisheries Agency holds information on fishery operations such as Automatic Identification System (AIS) information that is publicly available and Vessel Monitoring System (VMS) which is required to be installed on fishing vessels of Fishery Permitted by the Minister but is not available on most of the vessels of Fishery Permitted by the  Governor or on small fishing vessels.

The fisheries promotion measures that have been offered to coastal fishers in general waters, such as the increase in fishing reef effect and the creation of jobs for maintenance and inspection of wind farms, will no longer be attractive to many of the offshore fishers to establishing a win-win relationship between the asset owner/developer and the fishery community. Therefore, new measures on coexistence with fisheries will be necessary.

As the EEZ sea areas are often deep-sea areas, the enactment of the EEZ law will significantly increase the potential for the installation of floating offshore wind. The Japanese government is currently holding series of committee meetings to engage in a dialogue with the industry to establish a numerical target for installation of floating offshore wind, called “Floating Offshore Wind Strategy Study Group for Enhancing Competitiveness of the Offshore Wind Industry (tentative translation).” Though this is a very positive and welcoming exercise, concrete and urgent government support in nurturing floating offshore wind supply chain and industry is called for, especially because Japan does not have an industrial background of marine resource development. The government is supporting part of this challenge through Green Innovation Fund but continuous support is needed to foster the domestic industrial base, however, in parallel, how to integrate the competence that have already been nurtured abroad is important to elevate the competence level of the industry in Japanese. The strategic development of port and harbor is also essential to make them “floating-ready.” REI will be publishing a report shortly on how the development floating offshore wind-ready ports and would urge you to read the report when it is published. Grid connection is another crucial aspect to increase renewable energy in general and especially for larger installation of offshore wind farms expected by expanding the available sea area to EEZ, the speedy expansion of the grid system will be imperative.

The market is welcoming the revision of the law to allow extension of offshore wind development beyond the territorial waters to the EEZ waters, however there are more work that need to be done for Japan to maximize its potential in offshore wind.