Japan’s electric utility companies that had stopped considering applications for utility-scale solar look set to resume doing so, although projects will be subjected to stricter new rules.
Japan will produce definitive targets for renewable energy this year, according to a government official. The country’s government has taken criticism from pro-renewable energy groups for not doing so previously.
The French government is looking to kick-start the country’s residential market with an adjustment to the feed-in tariff (FiT) for projects up to 36kW.
One international developer of utility-scale PV projects says that proposed changes to Japan’s feed-in tariff (FiT) will not adversely affect business over the next two years, but certain aspects of those changes will be “challenging” to cope with.
The latest contender to challenge for the title of world’s largest merchant PV plant will be an 80MW project in the Antifagasto region of Chile to be built by Greenwood Energy.
California governor, Jerry Brown, has made an ambitious pledge for the state to be 50% powered by renewable energy within 15 years, in a speech given on Monday as he was sworn into office for a record fourth term.
The Japan Renewable Energy Foundation (JREF) has criticised a freshly issued set of rules in Japan that will allow utility companies to limit renewable energy output and lower feed-in tariff (FiT) payments in some cases.