Report on Japanese PV feed-in tariff expected in March February, 2010: A project team set up under Japan’s Ministry of Trade and Economy (METI) will issue a report by late March that could end up recommending the introduction of a feed-in tariff on all PV-generated electricity. If it does, the government may decide to replace the country’s current subsidy program for residential systems as well as incentives for larger installations in the public and private sectors. The developments are the result of last August’s victory by Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) in national elections (see PI 10/2009, p. 36). In its manifesto, the DPJ called for a comprehensive feed-in tariff on all PV-generated electricity, »not just on surplus electricity.« When Hatoyama’s cabinet office set up the Government Revitalization Unit (GRU) for reforming Japan’s national administration, the GRU recommended that the subsidy programs be replaced by a scheme of feed-in tariffs. As a result, METI formed a project team, sending Teruhiko Mashiko, METI’s senior vice minister, to Spain and Italy, and Shoji Watanabe, METI’s director of new and renewable energy, to the UK and Germany for consultations and research. A METI spokesperson declined to give any details on the results of the visits, saying only that the project team was currently holding internal discussions. Since November, the residential program, which has been offering subsidies of ¥70,000 ($760) per kW for rooftop systems up to 10 kW, has also included a per-kilowatt payment on surplus electricity fed to the grid of ¥48 (51.8¢) for systems up to 10 kW and ¥24 (25.9¢) from 10 to 500 kW. As of Jan. 24, the residential subsidy, offered since January 2009 (see PI 2/2009, p. 30), had received nearly 128,000 applications with a potential installed capacity of about 475 MW if all were approved. In December, Hatoyama sent a subsidy program request of ¥40.2 billion ($434.2 million) to the Japanese parliament for FY 2010 (see PI 1/2010, p. 20). Japan also has a subsidy program for larger systems that covers half the PV installation cost in the public sector and a third for the private sector. William P. Hirshman © PHOTON International, February 2010 Duplicate only with allowance of PHOTON Europe GmbH, Aachen, Germany  back