|
Information
updated as of July 2009
|
| Solar
Energy
|
| By
the end of 2007 cumulatively 1.9 GW of PV system have been
installed in Japan, mainly on residential homes. |
| Japan
was the sixth largest country market for solar photovoltaics
in 2008. In that year, a further 230
Megawatts of solar photovoltaic energy was installed in
the country. |
| Around
17% of the world's solar cell production was manufactured
in Japan in 2008. |
| market
was first stimulated by the PV Research and Development program,
which began as the Sunshine Project in 1974 in order to help
Japan become less dependent on imported oil. |
| The
most important federal program initiated was the Residential
PV System Dissemination Program. Between Fiscal Year 1994
and Fiscal Year 2005, it funded for total installations of
over 930 MW, comprised of over 250,000 residential PV systems,
and successfully reduced the buy-down rebate from ¥900,000/kW
in Fiscal Year 1994 to mere ¥20,000/kW in Fiscal Year 2005.
|
| The
Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry (METI) has been the
core agency supporting commercial, industrial and public segments
under the program called Field Test. |
| The
non-residential PV market has been growing in both numbers
and sizes, but still representing a very small fraction, a
little over 10%, of the domestic PV market. |
| In
Japan, the ten investor-owned regional electric power companies
are responsible for providing regional services. These ten
utilities have played an important role in deployment of PV
systems in Japan, through (1) buy-back scheme on excess PV
generated electricity, (2) Green Power Fund and (3) compliance
to the Renewable Energy Portfolio. |
|
Japanese
residential customers have to pay one of the highest electricity
rates in the world, at the average of ¥20.78 in Fiscal Year
2007, in spite of the recent deregulations that led the
electric utilities to a series of reduction in tariffs.
The ten Japanese utilities voluntarily started implementing
a buy-back scheme in Fiscal Year 1992 and this scheme has
been providing PV owners with the full retail value for
all excess electricity generations.
|
| The
buy-back scheme helps a PV owner drastically reduce electricity
bills and generate extra income by selling electricity at
much higher on-peak tariff rates (around ¥30/kWh) and buying
at off-peak rates (around ¥7-8/kWh). |
| Japanese
RPS became effect in April 2003, based on "Special Measures
Law Concerning the Use of New Energy by Electric Utilities."
This obligation was originally 12.2. TWh by Fiscal Year 2010
or mere 1.4% of a total retail electricity sales and in January
2007, the RPS was expanded and the requirement increased to
be 1.6% of total retail electricity sales from renewable energies
by Fiscal Year 2014. |
| Along
with this revision, a new policy was created to double count
PV generated electricity toward RPS requirement during a period
of Fiscal Year 2010 through Fiscal Year 2014. At the end of
Fiscal Year 2007, wind contributed 2.7 billion kWh while PV
contributed 0.6 billion kWh of renewable electricity to the
national RPS requirement. |
| The
federal government originally established a long-term energy
goal to install 4.82 GW of PV by Fiscal Year 2010. Although
this goal is likely to be unachievable, it is recently replaced
by more ambitious "vision" created by former Prime Minister
Fukuda in June 2008. |
| Fukuda
Vision is to increase the cumulative PV installed capacity
by 10 times, from the 2005 level, to be 14 GW by 2020 and
by 40 times to be 53 GW by 2030. The former Prime Minister
also pledged to install PV systems on 70% of newly built homes
by 2020. |
| To
align with the Fukuda Vision, federal agencies such as METI
have re-launched subsidy programs for the residential market
from 2009, hoping the domestic market will re-flourish again. |
| Click
here to go to Solar Energy Companies in Japan. |
| Click
here to go to Japanese Solar Energy Society (in japanese).
|
Listing
of the major Japanese Utilities
Of these Utilities, Tokyo Electric Power (also known as TEPCO)
is the largest. |
