Japan Solar Update: No.37 (Mar 20 ~ 24, 2023)
Agency for Natural Resources and Energy (ANRE) under the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) held the 84th meeting of the Procurement Price Calculation Committee and decided to set the new purchase category for rooftop PV systems (≥ 10 kW) and set the purchase price for FY 2024 at 12 Yen/kW (9.22 cents/kW).
This new category is applied to ≥ 10 kW commercial rooftop PV systems and the application of PV tender schemes is exempted. Since appropriate locations for installing PV modules are now on the decline, ANRE set the purchase prices of commercial rooftop PV systems 20% to 30% higher than those of groundmounted PV systems and aims to enhance companies’ willingness to install commercial rooftop PV systems toward promoting commercial rooftop PV systems. ANRE accelerates the timing of applying the scheme ahead of schedule and starts to purchase the electricity with 12 Yen/kWh (9.22 cents/kWh) from October 2023. As for the purchase prices of electricity generated from other types of PV systems for FY 2024, ANRE set at 10 Yen/kWh (7.68 cents/kWh) for 10 to < 50 kW ground-mounted PV systems, 9.2 Yen/kWh (7.07 cents/kWh) for ≥ 50 kW ground-mounted PV systems, and 16 Yen/kWh (12.3 cents/kWh) for < 10 kW residential PV systems.
<Key points 1>
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- Proposal by committee chairperson concerning procurement price, etc. was compiled and the FIT purchase price and FIP standard price, etc. in FY 2024 were newly presented. As for PV, the prices were set by categorizing the systems into ground-mounted PV systems and rooftop PV systems
- The FIT purchase price for < 10 kW PV systems remains unchanged from FY 2023 at 16 Yen/kWh (13.8 cents/kWh)
- The FIT purchase price and FIP standard price for ≥10 kW rooftop PV systems were set at 12 Yen/kWh (9.22 cents/kWh), which will be also applied to the second half of FY 2023 (October 2023 to September 2024). The prices for ground-mounted PV systems were set at 9.2 Yen/kWh (7.07 cents/kWh) for 50 – < 250 kW systems and 10 Yen/kWh (7.68 cents/kWh) for 10 – < 50 kW systems. In FY 2023 onward, the FIP program will be applied to 10 – < 50 kW systems provided that they satisfy certain requirements
- The scope of PV systems for which only the FIP program is applicable will be expanded to ≥ 250 kW. Only the FIP tender will be applied to ≥ 250 kW PV systems
The FIT purchase price and FIP standard price for FY 2024 were set by categorizing the systems into ground-mounted PV systems and rooftop PV systems
* From FY 2024 onward, the charge on the power producer side will be additionally taken into account. As for the FIT purchase price, tax-exclusive pricing shall be applied to taxable business operators and tax-inclusive pricing will be applied to taxexempt business operators, in line with the planned introduction of the qualified invoice system.
** From FY 2023 onward, the FIP program will be also applied to 10 – < 50 kW systems provided that they satisfy certain requirements
*** For 10 – < 50 kW PV systems, in principle, the requirements for self-consumption type PV systems for approving power sources as locally-used power sources will be applied
**** The FIT purchase price and FIP standard price of ≥ 10 kW systems for FY 2024 will be also applied to the second half of FY 2023 (October 2023 to March 2024)
Base amount of the reserve for dismantling, etc. (≥10 kW PV systems)
Figure 1 Chairperson’s proposal for the FIT purchase prices and FIP standard prices in FY 2023 onwards
Source: Materials of the 84th meeting of the Procurement Price Calculation Committee (January 31, 2023), compiled by RTS Corporation