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What Feed-in Tariffs Could Do for Japan's Electricity
Shortage
What Japan Could Do if It Followed Germany's Lead
on Renewable Energy
Within one Decade Japan Could Halve its Dependence
on Nuclear Power
April 19, 2011 - Paul Gipe- renewableenergyworld.com
If Japan adopted an aggressive renewable energy
policy like that of Germany, it could, within ten
years, generate more than four times the electricity
lost at the Fukushima 1 nuclear power plant, cutting
the country's reliance on nuclear power by one-half
or more.
As Japan expands the evacuation zone around the
damaged Fukushima 1 nuclear plant from 20 km
to 30 km and
Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO) skirts the edge of
bankruptcy, the country confronts a stark choice:
undertake a
massive construction program to replace the nuclear
reactors with more of the same, or, instead, follow
a new, less risky, and potentially more strategic
path toward rapid renewable energy development.
The stakes are high and the fight is already
intense
as Japanese elites debate the future of their electricity
system, and literally, the future of their country.
However, it is clear now that if Japan were to follow
the path blazed by Germany, it could more
than replace
the electricity generation lost by the damaged
plants at Fukushima in less time than it would
take to build
new reactors.
Germany alone added as much new renewable generation
in less than five years as Japan lost at Fukushima.
Wind energy alone generates more electricity
in Germany than the doomed Japanese reactors
once
did.
If Japan were to develop renewable energy at
the same pace as Germany has over the past
decade, it could add 120 TWh per year of new
renewable
generation.
It could add significantly more, if it kept
up with Germany's blistering pace of solar
energy
development
over the past five years. Using a system of
Advanced Renewable Tariffs, the modern version
of feed-in tariffs, Germany
added
80 TWh of new generation from wind, solar,
and biomass between 2000 and 2010. The six
damaged reactors at Fukushima 1 generated about
30 TWh in 2010, and Japan's fleet of
aging nuclear reactors generate a total of
about 260
TWh per year.
Japan and Germany
Japan and Germany are two of the world's economic
powerhouses. Their economies rank third and fourth,
respectively, behind the USA and China. Though
Japan and Germany occupy about the same land area,
Japan has ~50% greater population density and
its economy is 1.5 times larger than that of Germany.
Somewhat surprisingly for its technological sophistication,
Japan consumes 70% more electricity than Germany,
far more than would be expected by its greater
population. This has not been lost on international
observers
of Japan's economy following the disaster at Fukushima.
There's a lot of room in the Japanese economy for
improvements in energy efficiency and conservation.
If Japan were to emulate the spectacular growth of
renewable energy in Germany over the past decade
by implementing similar policies, it's reasonable
to expect that the amount of new generation to
be added would reflect the greater size of the Japanese
economy. Thus, it's reasonable to expect that Japan
could install 1.5 times the new generation Germany
added during the past decade over a similar period.
Japan has abundant wind, solar, biomass
and geothermal resources, but has not been an international
leader in any of these technologies except solar
photovoltaics (solar PV). Instead, the country has
been content to export what technology it does have,
while relying on nuclear power and fossil fuel imports
for its own electricity generation.
Renewable Energy in Japan
Japan generates only 1% of its 1,025 TWh of electricity
consumption per year from new renewables. In contrast,
Germany generates 14% of its supply from wind turbines,
biomass plants, and solar panels, and another 3%
from previously existing hydro plants.
![](file://///Trimtab/geni/Japan2.jpg)
Nuclear power provides one-quarter
of Japan's electricity supply. The plants at Fukishima
1 alone provided nearly 3% of Japan's electricity.
Geothermal
Japan began developing its geothermal resource in
the mid-1960s. Today, Japan operates nearly 540
MW of geothermal power and generates 3.5 TWh per
year. This modest fleet puts Japan eighth in world
geothermal rankings--behind Iceland and New Zealand,
and well behind the developing countries of Mexico,
Indonesia, and the Philippines in absolute capacity
installed.
![](file://///Trimtab/geni/Japan3.jpg)
However, on a per capita basis, Japan
falls even farther behind the small island nations
of Iceland and New Zealand. Iceland operates more
than 400 times more geothermal capacity per capita
than Japan, and New Zealand operates more than 30
times more geothermal generation per capita than
Japan.
Wind Energy
Japan does not rank in the top ten nations developing
wind energy, even though it has a leading wind
turbine manufacturer, Mitsubishi, that still builds
its wind turbines domestically. Despite its industrial
stature, its long coastline and its mountainous
interior, Japan ranks 12th in development of wind
energy, following Portugal. France, where nuclear
power provides more than 80% of generation, has
installed twice the wind capacity
of Japan. On a per capita basis, Japan fares even
worse. Denmark has more than 35 times the installed
wind capacity
per capita of Japan. Both Germany and Spain operate
nearly ten times more wind generating capacity than
Japan. Tiny Portugal has installed nearly 50% more
wind capacity than Japan. Only India, a developing
country, has done worse for its size and population
than Japan. Even the USA, a relative laggard in
developing most of its renewable resources, has
installed seven times
more wind generating capacity per capita than the
Japanese.
![](file://///Trimtab/geni/Japan4.jpg)
Solar PV
After the US faltered in the early 1980s, Japan took
the lead in developing solar PV technology, and,
from the mid 1980s through the 1990s, dominated
the industry. Since the turn of the century, Japan's
lead has quickly eroded with the rapid rise of
European solar markets.
![](file://///Trimtab/geni/Japan5.jpg)
Today Japan is third in total installed
solar PV capacity, but falls to fifth place on per
capita installations. On a per capita basis, Japan
is ahead of only the US and nuclear France. Germany
has installed seven times more solar PV per capita
than Japan, and, as a result, German companies have
become strong industrial competitors to Japanese
manufacturers. Even Italy, once the poor man of Europe,
has installed 1.7 times more solar PV per capita
than Japan.
Japan's Solar Resource
Solar PV already generates more electricity than
geothermal power plants in Japan, though not by
much. While the solar resource at some locations
in Japan is no better than that of Germany, there
are sites
where the solar yields are as much as 1,200-1,300
kWh/kWdc/yr. On average, Japan's solar resource is
14% greater than that in Germany's.
![](file://///Trimtab/geni/Japan%206.jpg)
What Japan Could Do
What could Japan do if it were to implement an aggressive
renewable energy program using, as in Germany, a
system of feed-in tariffs to encourage rapid development
of its indigenous resources? Japan certainly has
the industrial capacity, an educated and industrious
people, and an immediate
need for reconstruction that would make such an ambitious
program both possible and necessary.
While Japan and Germany are decidedly different
cultures, Germany has proven that a massive amount
of new generation can be added quickly. Equally important,
German policy spread the economic opportunity afforded
by the program equitably across all sectors of society
through its system of Advanced Renewable Tariffs.
Under such a policy, all renewable generators, regardless
of size, are guaranteed access to the grid. Everyone
can participate in the program — from the humblest
farmers and homeowners to multinational companies.
Germany's development of renewable energy contrasts
markedly with the way nuclear power was developed
in Japan. As in most other countries, the decisions
to build nuclear plants in Japan were concentrated
in the hands of a few industrial titans.Unlike the
development of nuclear power, the development of
renewable energy, because it is so dispersed,
can strengthen democratic society where feed-in tariffs
are used to create equal opportunity for all players-big
and small alike.Assuming that Japan did make such
a commitment, and did so this year, it could rapidly
ramp up installations
of wind, biomass, and solar PV capacity at a pace
comparable to that of Germany between 2000 and 2010.
Because Japan's economy is 1.5 times larger than
Germany's, wind energy and biomass could theoretically
be scaled up at 1.5 times Germany's pace. Under this
scenario, Japan would be generating more than 100
TWh from wind energy and biomass by 2022. Japan already
has a jump on rapidly expanding solar PV. Several
of the world's leading solar PV manufacturers
are based in Japan and there is a sizeable existing
home market.
It is rumored that Japan installed possibly as much
as 1,000 MW of solar PV last year, bringing total
installed capacity to 3,700 MW. Germany didn't reach
an equivalent stage of annual installations until
2005 and 2006. Thus, Japan's
pace of solar PV development could replicate Germany's
pace between 2005 and 2010, as well as its expected
installations through 2015.
![](file://///Trimtab/geni/Japan7.jpg)
Thus, solar PV grows rapidly from a modest contribution
in 2012 and begins to nearly double from one year
to the next, beginning in 2015. By 2022, solar PV
could be generating more than 50 TWh of renewable
electricity — widely distributed across Japan — increasing
the resiliency of the country's electricity network
from large-scale disturbances, such as earthquakes
and tsunamis.Germany has only just begun to develop
its geothermal resource. Consequently, there's no
comparable decade
of growth to pattern Japan's renewable policy after.
However, wind energy in Germany has grown 20% per
year, on average, during the past decade. If Japan
could add new geothermal generation at a 20% growth
rate from its current contribution,
geothermal generation could reach more than 20 TWh
per year by 2022.
All together, if Japan followed Germany's pace of
development, it could add more than 180 TWh of new
generation within the next decade, or six times the
generation lost at Fukushima 1 or more than two-thirds
the generation from Japan's entire fleet of nuclear
power plants.
Japan's Renewable Policy
What Japan must avoid is the piecemeal policy approach
that has characterized its policy in the past, and
bedeviled renewable policy in the U.S. for decades:
One policy for wind, another for solar PV, and yet
other policies for geothermal and biomass. To emulate
Germany's success, Japan must similarly implement
a comprehensive policy that includes all
renewables — not just solar, or not just wind.
Feed-in tariffs are well suited for this task because
of their reliance on tariffs differentiated by technology,
project size, and other factors. This is one of the
reasons why 23 of 27 European Union countries rely
on feed-in tariffs as the principal mechanism for
meeting their renewable energy targets.
The policy must also be long-term — at least
a decade or more — to give Japanese industry
and its people time to build the institutional capacity
needed to locate sites, manufacture equipment, and
install increasing number of solar panels, wind turbines,
biomass and geothermal power plants. The policy must
be in effect at least as long as it would take to
build a new series of reactors. Japan's policymakers
might be well served by looking to the province of
Ontario, Canada, as well as to
Germany for a sophisticated system of feed-in tariffs.
The policies in both jurisdictions have unique qualities.
Ontario's program has elements that Germany's does
not, such as, specific tariffs for community-owned
renewables. For its part, Germany has differentiated
tariffs for geothermal energy that Ontario does not.
Japan could pick the best elements from both jurisdictions.
But Ontarians have done the one thing unthinkable
in Germany; they have specified domestic-content
requirements for participation in their feed-in tariff
program. Ontario's objective was to create a domestic
industry for the 21st century and to ensure that
some of those future green jobs go to Ontarians.
The Unthinkable: Domestic Content Requirements
Japan may want to consider the unthinkable as well,
and incorporate a domestic content requirement into
a feed-in tariff program, in part to regain the technological
edge it lost in the past decade. This would indeed
be ironic, since Japan filed a trade complaint against
the province of Ontario for
its domestic content requirement, arguing that this
puts Japanese companies at a disadvantage. In the
short-term Japan will be importing more oil and liquefied
natural gas to replace the lost nuclear
generation at Fukushima. Such a controversial policy
as a domestic-content requirement could make sense,
since the astronomical costs of reconstruction and
repowering of Japan's electricity infrastructure,
and the necessity of limiting the nation's foreign
exchange expenditures for imports of fuel and manufactured
goods, could force the government's hand. The concepts
of trade protection and aid to domestic industry,
of course, are not foreign to any nation,
including Japan. This may be easier to implement
quickly in the Japanese context, where major industries
and the government itself form pacts and partnerships
to further their own internal interests.
Japan could limit its expenditures to the internal
economy as much as possible, using Japanese labor,
materials, and industrial resources. This may appeal
to Japanese industry and, perhaps, even some of what
Rikkyo University's Andrew DeWitt calls its "power
elite". Such a domestic content requirement
could conceivably circumvent GATT, on the grounds
of emergency reconstruction and environmental protection,
as Japan tries to reduce its vulnerability to more
nuclear disasters like that at Fukushima. Japan's
current ruling party came to power in part on a commitment
to implement an aggressive renewable
energy policy based on feed-in tariffs. It has failed
to do so. But the opportunity remains and the need
to implement an aggressive yet equitable policy is
now greater than ever.
As Japan first and foremost grapples with the urgent
need to care for those displaced by the earthquake,
tsunami, and the subsequent nuclear disaster, it
must also begin planning for the future. That future
can include the rapid development of massive amounts
of renewable energy by all sectors of Japanese society,
if the "power elite" can adapt the German
model to "Japan Inc."
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