Jakarta Globe, Chisaki
Watanabe, April 04, 2013
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articles
Tokyo.
Japan will probably become the largest solar market in the world after China
this year, boosted by an incentive program that offers above-market rates for
energy from renewable sources.
Commercial
and utility-scale projects will boost solar installations to a range of 6.1
gigawatts to 9.4 gigawatts in 2013, exceeding an earlier forecast of 3.2
gigawatts to 4 gigawatts, Bloomberg New Energy Finance said in a research
note.
“The upward
revision was done because of the rapid increase in shipments seen last quarter
as well as the fact that the pipeline of projects is even stronger than
previously expected,” BNEF said in a report released on March 29.
The
forecast reflects the push by Japan to find alternative sources of energy
following the Fukushima earthquake and tsunami in March 2011, which prompted
the closure of all but two of the nation’s nuclear reactors. Japan in July
began offering incentives through feed-in tariffs to encourage investments in
energy sources such as wind and solar.
Solar
Plans
Lawson
Inc., a Japanese operator of convenience stores, installed solar panels on
rooftops of 1,000 shops by the end of February and plans to set up systems for
another 1,000 outlets, Yuuki Takemoto, a company spokesman, said on Thursday by
phone.
The company
uses panels by Solar Frontier K.K. and Panasonic Corp. Lawson sells electricity generated from solar
panels to utilities and plans to use the income for energy saving equipment,
the spokesman said.
Other
companies that stand to benefit include Kyocera Corp., Sharp Corp. and Suntech
Power Japan Corp., all of which make and sell solar panels for residential and
industrial use.
“The
feed-in tariff has been successful in sparking interest and potential for
unprecedented growth in solar,” Travis Woodward, a Tokyo-based solar analyst at
BNEF, said in an e-mailed message.
“This large
introduction of solar is significant enough to compliment other strategies to
alleviate power demand issues from idling almost all nuclear plants in Japan.
Solar system prices will need to come down closer to global average, however,
to make a sustainable market.”
Market
Drivers
The
commercial segment - projects of 10 kilowatts to 1,000 kilowatts on industrial
rooftops and on idled land - is primarily behind the increase in the forecast,
according to London-based BNEF.
The
revision puts Japan ahead of the US and possibly ahead of China, BNEF said.
China is estimated to add 6.2 gigawatts to 10.5 gigawatts while additions in
the U.S. may total 3.3 gigawatts to 3.9 gigawatts.
The most
installations in any one year was in Italy in 2011 when that country added 7.9
gigawatts, according to BNEF.
Potential
barriers include system costs in Japan that remain high by international
standards and a lack of trained workers to install systems, BNEF said.
Japan’s
domestic shipments of solar cells and modules more than doubled to 1,003
megawatts in the three months to Dec. 31 compared with the same quarter the
previous year, the Japan Photovoltaic Energy Association said Feb. 26.
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