New Year's Column A New Path to Decarbonization with Renewables

in Japanese

In 2024, global solar capacity is estimated to have increased by nearly 600 GW. This is almost 30% more than was installed in 2023. Growth in 2020 was 150 GW, indicating that annual installations have quadrupled in just four years.
The International Energy Agency's net-zero scenario projects that solar PV will continue to surge and will supply 40% of the world's electricity generation by 2040, with renewables, including wind power, accounting for 85% of the global electricity mix.

At the end of last year, Japan's government released a draft of its Seventh Strategic Energy Plan. While it aims to make renewables the largest power source by 2040, the 40-50% target lags 15 years behind the European Union, which has already achieved this level.

Rooftop PV and agrivoltaics are expected to lead the growth of Japan's solar PV market. A useful point of reference is the situation in Germany, which is currently facing significant economic and social challenges, but is nevertheless experiencing rapid continued growth in its renewable energy sector. Solar PV installations dropped to 1.3 GW in 2015, but then grew by almost tenfold to 14 GW in 2023. Annual solar generation for 2024 is expected to reach around 17 GW. 
Interesting to note is that more than 60% of this is derived from rooftop solar installations. In Japan, the mandatory installation of solar power systems in new residential homes in Tokyo and Kawasaki is scheduled to come into effect in April of this year. Before perovskites can be produced on a large scale for commercial use, it is hoped that enhanced policies and various other measures will be put in place to speed up the deployment of solar PV on a national level.

Since the Strategic Energy Plan draft sets an unambitious target of 40-50% for renewables, meeting the target of 73% GHG reduction by fiscal 2040 from fiscal 2013 levels, as outlined in the simultaneously released draft NDC, will require a plan to achieve near-zero CO₂ emissions from thermal power, which will constitute 30-40% of the nation's electricity supply.
Achieving this level of emission reduction is only possible by implementing Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) which reduces CO₂ emissions by over 90% throughout the entire process of capture, transport and storage, or to generate electricity through the mono-fuel combustion of hydrogen and ammonia. However, the technology is not yet fully established, and even if they were feasible, the cost would be significantly high. Governmental cost verification results estimate power generation costs to be between 23.1 and 29.9 yen per kWh.

In 2023, renewable energy accounted for just 23% of Japan's electricity generation. To achieve a twofold or threefold increase in the deployment speed, a number of initiatives are required. These include institutional reform to facilitate installation, the creation of a market mechanism in which storage batteries are also utilized, and the accelerated enhancement of transmission lines. None of these are easy tasks, but this is the direction in which Japan should focus all its efforts to make an energy transition towards decarbonization.

At the end of last year, Renewable Energy Institute demonstrated that Japan has the potential to supply more than 90% of its electricity with renewables in 2040, and that if storage batteries and the power grid are enhanced, a stable electricity supply can be achieved without increasing costs, even if nearly 70% of electricity is supplied by variable power sources such as solar and wind power¹. We remain committed to collaborating with governments, businesses, local authorities, and civil society organizations to accelerate the deployment of renewables, including solar and wind, in pursuit of this vision.

We look forward to your continued kind attention and support for the year to come.