JAPAN TODAY
 
The Agency for Natural Resources and Energy of Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) has announced that it will review the operation of the feed-in tariff (FIT) policy with the aim of solving the problem of the suspension of grid connection applications.
 
The applications were made by power producers running renewable energy-based power generation facilities in Japan and suspended by power companies including Kyushu Electric Power Co Inc. The agency will introduce new rules for the reduction of the total amount of electricity generated by those facilities.
 
The New and Renewable Energy Subcommittee (Committee on Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Advisory Committee for Natural Resources and Energy) and the Grid Working Group (WG) of the subcommittee discussed challenges and countermeasures in the aim of finding solutions for the suspension of grid connection applications within 2014.
 
Based on the discussion in the subcommittee meeting, METI will review the operation of the FIT policy and make it possible to finely control output so that power companies can in a stable manner operate their power grids and a larger amount of renewable energy-derived electricity can be introduced.
 
METI will take four measures to reduce output. Specifically, it will (1) limit not only the output of large-scale power generation facilities but also the output of residential systems, (2) control output by the hour instead of the day, (3) make it a requirement to add a remote-control function to PV inverters and (4) expand the use of the “designated power producer system,” which enables to increase the period of output reduction to 30 days or more.
 
As the first measure, METI will limit the output of less-than-500kW facilities in addition to 500kW and higher-capacity facilities, which have been targeted up until now. However, the output of residential systems, which sell less-than-10kW of surplus electricity, will be limited only if the limit imposed on 10kW and higher-capacity systems turns out to be insufficient.
 
Also, the output of less-than-500kW wind power plants will be newly limited in addition to that of 500kW and higher-capacity wind power plants, which has already been limited.