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| Tue, 2nd Jun 2020 12:49:00 |
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Agricultural PV emerges as Japan’s next opportunity |
Self-consumption, the ability to isolate from the grid and provide power in the event of outages, and agricultural solar are key components in the 2020 revisions to Japan's feed-in tariff program, reports RTS Corp.'s Izumi Kaizuka.
From April 2020, the first month of the fiscal year in Japan, new rules went into effect for the feed-in tariff (FIT) program. The key changes are new tariffs as well as self-consumption requirements for PV systems ranging in size from 10 kW to 50 kW, as well as a capacity reduction for projects that must participate in tenders, from 500 kW or more down to 250 kW at present.
These changes reflect a new direction for Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) and represent a drastic revision of the country’s FIT program. METI intends to implement a renewable energy support scheme on the basis of the characterization of the power source.
PV installations will be promoted by categorizing renewable energy into two types of power sources: competitive power sources and locally consumed power. Large-scale PV power plants are now positioned as a competitive power source to be integrated into the electricity market under the feed-in premium (FIP) program. The new program is expected to start in fiscal 2021. Meanwhile, systems under 50 kW – essentially small-scale commercial PV systems and residential arrays connected to the low-voltage network – are classified as locally consumed power sources. This means that they are intended for self-consumption and community consumption.
Systems between 10 kW and 50 kW must comply with two requirements under the new scheme. First, systems must achieve at least a 30% self-consumption ratio. When project owners apply for FIT approvals, they need to submit plans for self-consumption, as exported power amounts will be monitored during operation. The second requirement relates to operation during grid-blackout events, which means the ability to isolate or island in response to such events and provide at least one external power socket for supply.
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