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