Following example from Germany, Spain and other countries, the Japanese government has just approved a bill a few days ago that would allow renewable energy producers to upload electricity to the grid at premium, subsidized prices.
The bill will be enabled on July 1, 2012 and will subsidize solar, wind, geothermal, biomass and hydroelectric power, as a measure to replace the nation’s greedy need for nuclear power. Only about 9 percent of Japan’s electricity is currently obtained from low-carbon sources.
This kind of approach has created a veritable race in the other countries that have already implemented similar programs, such as Germany and Spain.
Japan is targeting the production of 28 gigawatts of clean solar electricity by 2020, a huge leap from the currently installed 3.68 gigawatts.
Of course, objections to this program already exist from Japan’s most important business lobbies, including Keidanren, which contains the country’s biggest utilities. One of their reasons is that the average household would pay 180 yen more a month due to this law.
