Fighting Blackouts: Japan Residential PV and Energy Storage Market Flourishing

Published at Renewable Energy World --- Almost one decade ago, Japanese PV makers dominated global PV production — Sharp, Kyocera, Sanyo (now part of Panasonic) and Mitsubishi Electric represented about 50 percent of global production in 2005. When German and other European markets expanded quickly, a great number of companies in Europe and Asia, specifically China, jumped into the “potentially” profitable PV industry. They rapidly ramped up their production and brought down costs, leaving Japanese companies behind.

When the Japanese government decided to pump life into the lagging domestic PV market, it created a generous feed-in tariff (FIT) program. Japanese manufacturers began enjoying full access to the lucrative domestic market and started to see the improvements in their bottom lines.... Read More

世界2位の太陽電池市場になる日本、持続的な成長を続けられるか

Published at Nikkei Technology --- 2013年の太陽電池の地域別導入量で、日本は中国に次ぐ世界2位の市場になるとの予測が、複数の調査会社から発表になっている。この「日本急成長説」は、2012年7月に日本で固定価格買い取り制度が始まり、数GW以上の大規模プロジェクトの設備認定が急増したことが背景にある。確かにメガソーラーを含む大型システムは、規模が大きいことから、市場規模の拡大に貢献しやすい。しかし、現在の高い買い取り価格のために、持続的な成長ではなく、一時的なブームで終わるのではないかとの懸念もある。投資が目的の場合、買い取り価格のみで市場が動くため、制度開始から3年間と決められた「プレミア価格」が終了すれば、ブームが去る可能性はあるだろう。... Read More

Is the Japan PV Market the Next Big Thing?

Published at Renewable Energy World --- Japan has been experiencing an enormous boom in solar energy development over the past year. More than 6.7 GW of PV projects have been approved between July 2012 and January 2013, according to the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), and more than 47 percent of these projects are over 1 megawatt (MW), which is locally known as Mega Solar.

Can Japan really be moving up to the second largest PV market in the world this year? There are some critics.

As Japan brings more Mega Solar online, it has started to experience grid issues. Hokkaido Power Electric Company, one Japan's investor-owned utilities, revealed that the capacity of its ultra-high-voltage transmission, which PV systems sized over 2 MW are interconnected, is currently 400 MW. As of March 31, the utility received four times as many applications as it could hold. This means that the ¾ of the applied projects will not be able to access the grid or need to reduce scale — Hokkaido sent out notifications to large project applicants about the unavailability of the grid capacity. In the meantime, METI requested that project developers consider other less crowded areas for solar developments.... Read More

Game Changer: Can Solar Frontier be the Next Shining Star in Japan then World?

In this very turbulent PV market, which PV module company is currently making profits, expanding production capacity, and cannot even catch up with the demand!? The answer is Solar Frontier, a Japanese CIS (copper, indium, selenium) thin-film PV manufacturer.

Once Japananese PV makers dominated the world PV production. Until almost a decade ago. Sharp, Kyocera, Sanyo (now part of Panasonic) and Mitsubishi Electric led the world.  When German and other European markets expanded quickly, a great number of companies in Europe and Asia, specifically China, joined the “potentially” profitable PV industry, rapidly ramped up their production and brought down the production cost, leaving the Japanese companies behind.   

When Japanese government decided to put a brake on the lagging domestic PV manufactures and market by creating the Feed-in tariff (FIT) program, Japanese makers were like a Koi fish in a pond, began enjoying the benefit of the full access to the lucrative domestic market and they start seeing the improvement of their bottom line. Solar Frointier is no exception. 

While many module companies such as SolarWorld and Sharp are losing money or going under major restructuring such as Suntech and LDK to survive in the industry where ample of modules   sever price erosion caused by global oversupply. Recently the company has achieved followings:

• Made a first operating profit in the first quarter 2013, two quarters ahead of the plan
• Reduced the material costs by 25% by the first half of 2012 and it is improving
• Bumped up its production capacity utilization to 100% at its 900-MW Kunitomi plant from January
• Will resume production at its previously suspended 60-MW Miyazaki No. 2 PV plant from July  
• Vertically expanding into the downstream solar value chain,  as an EPC contractor, Project Developer and Independent Power Producer, becoming a turnkey solution provider – beyond a module only provider 
• Created a joint investment company with Development Bank of Japan (DBJ) to fund 100-MW worth of large-scale PV projects (500 kW to 2 MW in size) in Japan.

It is reported that thin-film PV lost more ground globally to silicon PV in 2012, the thin-film share in Japan is in fact increasing.  The data released by the Japan Photovoltaitc Energy Association (JPEA) shows that thin-film took 13% of the Japanese PV technology market share, up by 22% from 11% share in 2011. This year the share can be expected to get larger again. Nobuyuki Nagashima, Solar Frontier’s Manager for Communications

An interview with a Solar Frontier executive will reveal the company’s growing strategies along with its plan to catch up with First Solar, the world largest thin-film producer. Solar Frontier will be able to cut production costs of its solar modules by half in the next few years as it seeks to emerge as one of the world’s biggest solar module manufacturers.