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Is Japan To Become Second Largest Market For Solar Power In The World?

Following the Fukushima nuclear disaster that resulted in only two of Japan’s nuclear reactors remaining in operation, the country has been driving forward their desire to make greater use of alternative energy sources. In July 2012, the Japanese government started to provide feed in tariff incentives to encourage resources being committed to the likes of solar and wind power.

Japan has seen a huge increase in the number of solar panels being installed
(image credit: stantontcady)

A research document by Bloomberg New Energy Finance refers to the forecasts for Japanese utility and commercial scale projects that were originally between 3.2 gigawatts to 4 gigawatts being revised upwards by a considerable amount to between 6.1 gigawatts to 9.4 gigawatts during this year. The United States of America are forecasting between 3.3 gigawatts and 3.9 gigawatts with China forecasting between 6.2 gigawatts and 10.5 gigawatts.

This revised forecast can be, in the main, attributed to last quarter’s trade increasing and the number of schemes in the pipeline being more than originally expected. If the above were to be achieved, Japan may end up having the second largest solar market in the world behind China with that being a considerable achievement.

There are some large solar panel projects in place with the likes of Lawson Inc having had solar panels installed on 1,000 of their stores. They are expecting to put panels on the roofs of another 1,000. The company sell the electricity that has been generated to utilities and intends to use the generated income towards other energy saving items.

Although Japan is making huge progress there is a view that the price of solar panel installations will need to reduce more towards the average world price to create a market that is more sustainable and they need more skilled workers to install the systems.

In 2011, Italy had the greater number of installations totalling 7.9 gigawatts.

It will be interesting to monitor the progress that Japan makes over the next few months.

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