ThinkGeoEnergy – Geothermal Energy News

Could Japan’s renewable energy incentive program see an overhaul?

Changes for geothermal projects under the Japanese renewable energy incentive program are not likely despite debate about solar projects under the scheme.

Bloomberg reports on concerns by the Japanese government regarding its incentive program for renewable energy development. As part of the program renewable energy technologies get guaranteed feed-in-tariffs for the power they feed into the grid.

The system though sees some strong critiques mostly by utilities that say that “their transmission lines are being overwhelmed with requests for grid connections from solar developers.”, so Bloomberg.

So the government is now considering to hold auctions to manage solar projects, which could mean an overhaul of the overall incentive program.

A government task force is currently reviewing the incentive program and auctions are seen as a way to manage the number of projects.

 

To this point, most of the renewable energy added to the grid has been solar. The incentive program though also covers other sources, such as wind and geothermal.

Auctions could be held in a way that developers are chosen on lowest price, but this seems to be only being considered for solar projects at this point. So overall it does not seem that there is an imminent threat to the program or geothermal energy projects under the program so far.

Source: Bloomberg
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