Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) announced the new PV feed-in tariff (FiT) in early March. The commercial PV FiT will be revised downward to 32 Yen and residential PV FiT to 37 Yen.
On March 7th, METI announced the new PV FiT that will be enforced in fiscal year 2014 (April, 2014 ~ March, 2015). The commercial PV FiT will be revised from last year’s 36 Yen/per kW (tax-exclusive) downward to 32 Yen, and residential PV FiT to be revised from 38 Yen downward to 37 Yen. This is the second successive year of FiT-cutting, Nikkei BP reported.
Japan announced the “Feed-in Tariff Scheme for Renewable Energy” in July 2012 and set the first PV FiT as 42 Yen/per kW, the highest rate around the world that time. However, METI successively revised down the rate since FY 2012 to reflect lower PV cells prices and electricity-generating costs. Higher rate of equipment utilization and lower O&M costs are both factors that lead METI to cut down the PV FiT. Besides, METI also gives more preferential policies to offshore wind turbines, geothermal, hydropower and biofuel and hopes to transit the excessive investment from solar power into other types of renewable energy.
