Solar panels shine in Japanese homes, schools

Japan's house-building industry is going "green". Eco-friendly features on houses are definite selling points, and the growth in residences equipped with solar panels shows this.

Sekisui House, one of Japan's largest home construction companies, is estimated to triple the number of solar-equipped homes between FY2008 and 2009 (2,000 to 6,000), according to a Nikkei estimate. Other construction companies may not have the same growth rate, but the generous subsidies and other incentives are causing growth in this area. A friend of mine building a house in Tokyo reports that the 7kW solar panels he is installing will actually allow him to sell his surplus energy back to the grid at twice what he pays for it, as reported here. These and the installation subsidies will definitely spur growth in this area.

On the public front, the Japanese government has announced an ambitious plan to convert all 32,000 public schools below high school to solar power in the next 11 years. Currently, 1,200 schools are so equipped, but as a short-term target, this number is expected to increase to 12,000 by the end of 2012. The cost is estimated at between JPY 600 and 900 billion, with central government shouldering 2.5 of the installation costs.

20kW panels as envisaged will not eliminate all the carbon footprint of Japan's educational system, but will probably (at current efficiency levels) save the electricity consumed by 200,000 Japanese residences (and it must be remembered that Japanese domestic electricity consumption is about 50% that of the USA per household).

Will this help to reduce Japan's carbon emissions? Yes, of course it will, in the long-term, but it's hard to avoid the suspicion that the Aso government is carrying on the LDP tradition of spending money on public works projects with dubious long-term benefits. However, spending on this kind of project is much more acceptable in Japanese society than yet another unwanted airport (such as the Shizuoka airport, which will probably stand unused as a poster child for the LDP's wasteful concrete-pouring policies that have destroyed Japan's natural landscape and bought votes in rural constituencies.