Introduction targets for 2030 “Achievable”
On March 1st, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) and the Agency for Natural Resources and Energy (ANRE) began discussion at the panel of experts on the status of renewable energy concerning energy mix (power source composition as of 2030) in the next basic energy plan. The executive office indicated the prospect that the current target of 22-24% for FY2030 is achievable based on the amount of existing installations and FIT(Feed-in Tariff) certifications. On the other hand, the total amount of the purchase is projected to be 3.9-4.4 trillion yen, an increase of 200-400 billion yen from the initial assumption, and it clarified the cost issue.
The ANRE indicated the estimates and issues at the “Large integration of renewable energy sources / Next-generation power networking committee” (Chairperson: Kenji Yamaji, Deputy Chairman/Head of Research Division, the Research Institute of Innovative Technology for the Earth)
For the case already certified for FIT, the ratio of renewable energy in the power source composition in FY2030 is mechanically estimated to be 22-24% based on the case of 50% and 70% operation of solar power, wind power and biomass. With this, it increased the possibility of achieving the current target value of energy mix ahead of schedule.
On the other hand, the total amount of purchase increased from 3.7 – 4 trillion yen at the time when the plan was formulated, mainly due to the fact that many solar power with high purchase costs at the beginning of the FIT have been certified.
In recent years, other than the trends in the power generation costs for solar power remain unchanged at a low level, also wind power costs have been rising and how to achieve both suppression of the national burden and expansion of the introduction amount was a major point of issues. One of the committee member stated “Request for the responsible cost management to the government ”
Increase of the introduction amount is also the point and there are some issues such as decrease in the suitable areas for development, co-existence with local community and system constraints, etc. The ANRE pointed out that the development period of each power source is limited toward the 2030 target while indicating the need to promote the increase of the introduction amount in consideration of “carbon neutral in 2050”.