The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry of Japan has approved a cut in solar feed-in tariffs as of 1 July 2015. Tariffs will decrease for applications approved from 1 April to 30 June 2015, from Yen 32/kWh to Yen 29/kWh (from US$26c/kWh to US$24c/kWh), i.e. a 9.4% cut. They will be cut again as of July 2015, to Yen 27/kWh (US$22c/kWh), corresponding to a 16% cut of the current level. This will end Japan's three-year incentive programme, launched in July 2012, which led to a strong increase in solar capacity: Japan installed more than 7 GW of solar PV capacity in the last fiscal year, from April 2013 to March 2014, compared to 1.66 GW in the previous year (April 2012 to March 2013).
Japan has also set a new tariff for small sized biomass projects (from wood): the current Yen 32/kWh (US$26c/kWh) tariff will only apply to installations above 2 MW as of April 1, 2015, while smaller installations will benefit from a Yen 40/kWh (US$33c/kWh) tariff.
Feed-in tariffs for other renewable projects (wind, geothermal among others) will remain unchanged in the next fiscal year starting in April 2015. However, the surcharge for customers will double from Yen 0.75/kWh to Yen 1.58/kWh (from US$0.62c/kWh to US$1.3c/kWh).
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