Japan Press Weekly

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2012 October 3 - 9 [NUCLEAR CRISIS]

Feed-in tariffs helped generate same amount of power as nuclear power reactor

In the last two months, renewable energy generated under a new feed-in-tariff system reached the amount equivalent to that which one nuclear power reactor can produce.

During the period between the start of the system in July and the end of August, power producers designated by the feed-in-tariff system generated a total of 1.3 million kilowatts of electricity. The amount is expected to increase by 2.5 million kW by March next year.

Among the power generated in the 2 months, more than 50% or 725,000kW was produced by non-residential solar installations, followed by residential solar installations (306,000kW) and wind power (262,000kw).

The new system requires electric companies to buy electricity generated by solar power, wind power, small- and medium-scale hydropower, geothermal power, and biomass at fixed prices. Other renewable energy sources, such as wave power and tidal power, are planned to be included in the system as well when they will be put into practical use.

The cost for utilities to buy renewable energy is added to electricity charges. Under this system, the more power renewable energy is generated, the more costs users will have to shoulder.

In order to avoid this, the promotion of power resources development tax should be utilized as most of the money is now used to promote nuclear power generation, Akahata asserts.