Japan's installed solar power reaches 1.4GW

Solar power accounted for 1.398GW of Japan’s renewable energy capacity of 1.443GW.

This was based on the figures released by the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.

Since the Japanese government launched its feed-in tariff in July, the country's PV investment surpassed US$2 billion of capital in renewables.

Currently, METI has approved 3,262MW of mostly large-scale PV projects. Majority of these projects will not be online by the end of the fiscal year, but METI expects at least 600MW will be connected before 31 March 2013.

The prefecture with the most installed capacity was Hokkaido in northern Japan. This is aso where Orix Corporation, a Japanese financial services group, will construct its largest project with a total capacity of 17.5MW.

Japanese property developer Mitsui Fudosan has also unveiled plans to develop a 23MW solar power plant in Tomakomai city, Hokkaido.

The Japanese residential sector is the most developed with 1.027GW while the non-residential sector installed 371MW.

Furthermore, Japanese mobile phone company Softbank announced the launch of a new PV programme which seeks to install PV arrays atop 1,000 residential rooftops in Japan.

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