Wakayama Prefecture: A Year of Light Gathering for Residential Solar Photovoltaic Applications FY 2008

Wakayama Prefecture: A Year of Light Gathering for Residential Solar Photovoltaic Applications FY 2008

In the latter half of the 2000s, renewable energy was attracting increasing attention in Japan. Especially around 2008, soaring oil prices hit households and industries hard, and energy self-sufficiency and energy-saving support became important issues for local governments. National policies discussed the revival of solar power generation subsidies, and expectations were high for the promotion of the use of solar power.

Under these circumstances, Wakayama Prefecture launched its own subsidy program in FY 2008 to support the introduction of solar power generation systems for households. The subsidy was 25,000 yen per 1kW output, with a maximum of 125,000 yen, and was intended to reduce the burden of installing solar equipment, which was expensive at the time.

Immediately after the launch of the program, 298 applications were received, exceeding expectations, and the budget of 20 million yen was exceeded, so a lottery was held. This was an indication that interest in photovoltaic power generation was spreading widely among ordinary households, and it was also in line with the background of the time when environmental policy was a priority national issue, with climate change measures being a major agenda item at the G8 Hokkaido Toyako Summit that same year.

Based on this response, Wakayama Prefecture continued the program in the following fiscal year and beyond. The spread of photovoltaic power generation was also expected to function as a means of distributing local electricity loads and as an independent power source in times of disaster, and the environmental and energy policies of local governments were moving into a phase in which multiple issues were being linked together.