Figures released by Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) have revealed a significant growth in the rate of solar PV installations and approvals under the country's Feed-in Tariff through to the end of May 2013.
Japan commissioned 1.24GW of PV in April and May 2013 but has also registered a cumulative total of 20.9GW through the Feed-in Tariff Scheme (FiTS) which includes 19.3GW of non-residential PV. The figures show a sharp growth over the course of the year, given that PV installations for the previous year from April 2012 to the end of March 2013 were only 1.97GW. This means that there was around 17.5GW of PV projects which qualified for the tariff but had not yet been commissioned as of May 31st 2013. The METI figures therefore confirm the exponential growth rate of the Japanese PV market, something that is also revealed in PV shipment figures.
The figures also show that residential installations have been eclipsed by other segments such as the commercial, industrial and utility-scale sectors where PV installations during April and May 2013 reached 961MW compared to just 279MW for the residential sector.
A delay in the release of these figures has led to some accusations that the government has attempted to hide the true progress of renewable energy installation.
“Even though Japan made an announcement today, the renewable energy reports for June and July are still not here and are extremely late” commented blogger Kevin Meyerson who has also petitioned the government to release the figures. Meyerson also posted, on August 13th, his view that the administration of Shinzō Abe has attempted to hide the progress of renewables in order to bring back online Japan's nuclear power plants.
Further information:
