Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) called a committee to discuss issues regarding new energy in early August. Japan Photovoltaic Energy Association (JPEA) announced that the market of Japanese solar business has expanded to JYP 2.5 trillion yen in 2013, almost the same with household electric appliances.

According to data collected and revealed by JPEA, METI’s feed-in tariff (FIT) scheme is crucial to the boost of solar business, which has rapidly grown from 670 billion yen in 2011 to 2.5 trillion yen in 2013. Nikkei BP reported, solar panels, power conditioners (PCS), inverters and PV mounts are all related to the solar business. Design, management and construction of solar infrastructure are also parts of Japan’s solar segment. Moreover, the solar services from upstream to downstream have already created more than 300,000 direct and indirect jobs in the nation.

The 2.5 trillion yen market is almost at the same level to Japanese household electric appliance market. JPEA additionally pointed out that more than 90% of the solar business was domestic transaction, representing a value of around 2.25 trillion yen.

(Photo Credit: Richard Masoner shared by cc 2.0)