Renewable Energy Capacity in Japan -- up 15% in Year 1 of the Feed in Tariff

According to METI statistics released last week, the total newly installed capacity of renewable electricity generation in Japan during the first year of the feed-in-tariff (July 1 2012 to June 30 2013) amounts to 3.666 Gigawatts of capacity, a 15% increase in Japan's renewable energy generation capacity.

More than 95% of the newly installed capacity is solar PV -- no surprise given the comparative difficulty of siting, permitting and building other types of renewables in Japan.  Of the new capacity, 1.379GW is residential solar PV, and 2.12GW is commercial/utility scale, so-called "mega" solar installations.

The 3.5GW of new solar far exceeded METI's plan for 2.0GW installations.  Wind power,  on the other hand, barely shows up as a blip on the radar.  Siting of major wind farms takes a very long time in Japan, and NIMBY opposition makes it nearly impossible.

The 3.5GW of installed solar is only a small fraction of the 22GW that has been METI "certified" solar PV.  The bulk of the to-be-built projects are mega solar.  Even if many of those projects are never built due to issues with land rights, land use approvals, utility interconnection and/or financing, a portion of the 22GW will be build, and yet further project will be certified.  It should be easy to exceed 3.5GW of newly installed solar PV in Japan during July 1, 2013-June 30, 2014.

Many sources indicate that the new renewables capacity is equivalent to "3 nuclear power plants".  That is not quite accurate.  There is no technical reason that a nuclear plant with 1GW generating capacity should not operate 80% or more of the time.  The U.S. nuclear reactor "fleet" operates at higher than 85% load factor (capacity utilization).  In fact, prior to March 11, 2011, Japanese nuclear plants had a very low average load factor -- more like 60%.  Solar facilities, on the other hand, operate at or near their rating peak capacity for only a few hours a day, so have only 10-12% of the annual kWh generation of a 24x7 plant operating at full capacity.   When this discount is applied, 3.5GW of solar PV installation is closer to one half of a Japanese nuclear reactor.)