Abstract
Recently, development and utilization of wind energy have attracted interest both in technical and economical point of view among private sectors as well as local governments. The introduction of wind energy was accelerated in 1999 and the cumulative wind power capacity in Japan reached 100MW at the beginning of 2000. A capacity level of 150MW is very. close. A commercial wind farm of 20MW capacity was constructed in December 1999 and the another 30MW wind farm is under construction. The Government started new research programs on wind energy in order to develop wind turbine generator systems that are suitable for the Japanese external conditions. The decentralization in the electric power industry has started in March 2000.
