Japan aims to restart solar subsidies next year

Japan aims to reintroduce subsidies on solar power equipment next year to help generate demand until technological innovation brings prices down.

The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry will draw up plans for new residential and commercial subsidies by August, in time to put them in their budget requests for next year, ministry officials said on Tuesday.
Japan, the world’s biggest supplier of solar cells, has watched domestic solar power demand dry up after it pulled the plug on subsidies in March 2006, hurting solar equipment firms’ ability to invest in research and expansion abroad.

“We don’t want to depend on subsidies. We are hopeful that technology would eventually lower solar energy prices far enough that people will have an incentive to use it,” Shoji Watanabe, who heads the ministry’s new energy policy team, told Reuters.

“Until then, subsidies or other state support, such as tax breaks, are necessary.”

Reuters