United Wind has announced a partnership with Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, Inc. (TEPCO) to bring its wind leasing model to the distributed wind energy market in Japan. The partnership includes a recently completed growth equity investment by TEPCO into United Wind, as well as plans to jointly develop distributed wind projects in Japan starting in 2017.
Japan's FIT was established in 2013 in response to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in order to incentivize a diverse mix of renewable energy projects. At the end of 2015, there were 312 small wind projects representing close to 4.6 MW of capacity approved for the FIT. In 2015, wind turbines of up to 20 kW received 55¥ ($0.51 USD) per kWh and turbines of 20 kW and greater received 22¥ ($0.21 USD) per kWh (METI 2015). Japan currently has an estimated capacity of approximately 280GW of onshore wind power.