In last week’s Analysis section, Japan NRG dug into the reasons behind Mitsubishi Corporation and their partner’s decision to renege on their commitments to deliver 1.75 GW of offshore wind power across the three projects they won in Round 1 auctions in December 2021.

What impact does this have on the workforce for offshore wind? This is a major industry, with METI targets of 30 to 45 GW of projects to be installed by 2050. With a 60% requirement of domestic content in the supply chain, this industry would create thousands of jobs in manufacturing, engineering, installation, operations and maintenance domestically. As seen with the initial flurry of market entries and investment into the sector, we also expected strong opportunities for experienced global professionals from developers and engineering firms to collaborate with Japanese firms to accelerate the successful rollout of quality projects.

Since the controversial 2021 wins, many foreign firms have exited the Japan market, while domestic firms have scaled back development and bid activity; the workforce has remained stagnant in some firms and shrunk in others. From Titan’s observations, after a developer has left the market, about half of their team moves to competitors to continue pursuing offshore wind; but the other half move to new, growth sectors within the energy industry.

Will the news of Mitsubishi’s exit be a hammer blow to the thousands of jobs expected to be created by offshore wind, or is this merely a speedbump on the way to inevitable growth?