GE Vernova’s Onshore Wind business announced the start of operations of the Ishikari Hachinosawa Wind Farm located in Ishikari city, in Hokkaido island. The 21 MW wind farm, owned by Ishikari Green Energy Co Ltd, a subsidiary of one of Japan’s largest electric utilities, J-POWER, has been in operation since March 2024, and is powered by 5 units of GE Vernova’s 4.2-117 MW wind turbines, providing the equivalent energy to power approximately 7,400 households.

The project, being GE Vernova’s 2nd 4.2-117 wind turbine project for J-POWER, serves to further strengthen the companies’ relationship following the start of operations of the Esashi Replacement Project in early 2023. GE Vernova, J-POWER and project construction partners have been working closely to achieve start of operations since the arrival and delivery of the main wind turbine components at Ishikari Shinko Port in May 2023.

A unique challenge of the project was coping with snow. Ishikari is a location that experiences heavy snow and blizzards and had undergone incidents of white-outs with severe lightning and thunderstorms during the commissioning of the project. This posed challenges for the project team, who had to stop work periodically to prioritize safety. Daily snow removal work, close collaboration with the customer, and proper last-mile planning enabled the project to be constructed safely, and on-schedule.

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