Japan's Green Investment Promotion Organization has released the final results of its latest solar project auction. The agency selected a total of 273 PV projects with a total capacity of 268.7MW. This is the eleventh round of solar auctions in the country and the last to award a fixed electricity price. Subsequent auctions will use feed-in tariffs. The auction's lowest price was ¥8.99/kWh ($0.078).
Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) has announced feed-in tariffs (FiT) applicable to solar installations with a capacity between 10-250kW and feed-in tariffs (FIP) allocated to solar projects above 250kW awarded through the country's tender program in 2022 . The Ministry has set a FiT of ¥11 ($0.096)/kWh for PV systems with a capacity of 10-50kW and a FiT of ¥10 ($0.087)/kWh for projects of 50-250kW, both of which will be Get a fixed electricity price without having to choose in a purchasing plan. METI plans to exclude all grid-connected PV systems by January 17, 2022, and wants to allocate 665MW of solar capacity through three different tenders.
The cost of solar projects in Japan has increased by about 20% compared with last year. The new FiT policy does not give the project any room for profitability, and it does not correspond to the goal of the sixth edition of the draft energy plan announced by the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry on July 21, 2021: further compression The proportion of coal, natural gas and oil in the future energy mix is hoped to achieve the commitment to reduce emissions by at least 46% by 2030 compared to 2013. At the same time, the proportion of annual power generation from renewable energy has been raised from 22-24% to 36-38%, of which solar energy accounts for 15%.
In 2020, Japan added 8.7GW of photovoltaic installed capacity, the highest level since 2015, mainly due to the backlog of projects of more than 1MW coming into the grid. Japan is expected to add 7GW of photovoltaic installed capacity in 2021, while the installed capacity in 2022-2023 will drop by 30-40%, mainly because the FiT application in 2020 will drop by 55% compared with 2019, plus the 30% self-use mandatory for 10-50kW projects We predict that in order to achieve the 36-38% renewable energy target in Japan, corresponding reforms must be made, otherwise this target will be difficult to achieve.