Solar power generation made up some 10% of the peak summer electricity supplies of Japan's nine major utilities, the Asahi newspaper reported on Thursday.
While solar power contributes only about 2% of annual power generation in the country, sunny skies throughout the summer increased power output, generating a total of some 15 GW of power in early August.
Japan has invested billions of dollars in renewable energy since 2012, when it introduced a feed-in tariff (FIT) program in an effort to reduce its reliance on nuclear power in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima catastrophe.
According to the Asahi report, the ratio of solar power at peak hours ranged from 5.9% at the Hokuriku Electric Power utility to as high as 24.6% at Kyushu Electric Power.
Installed solar capacity benefitting from the countrys FIT scheme reached more than 24 GW at the end of April, according to government data, up from about 5 GW before the program was launched.
This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: editors@pv-magazine.com.
By submitting this form you agree to pv magazine using your data for the purposes of publishing your comment.
Your personal data will only be disclosed or otherwise transmitted to third parties for the purposes of spam filtering or if this is necessary for technical maintenance of the website. Any other transfer to third parties will not take place unless this is justified on the basis of applicable data protection regulations or if pv magazine is legally obliged to do so.
You may revoke this consent at any time with effect for the future, in which case your personal data will be deleted immediately. Otherwise, your data will be deleted if pv magazine has processed your request or the purpose of data storage is fulfilled.
Further information on data privacy can be found in our Data Protection Policy.