Japan’s largest solar farm to date will be supplied with around 116MW of modules from vertically integrated Chinese tier-one manufacturer and project developer Trina Solar, it was announced this morning.
The solar farm project in Setouchi, Okayama prefecture, just to the east of Japan’s second biggest city, Osaka, will have a total generation capacity of 231.44MW. The installation will cost a reported US$822 million, with PV Tech reporting the development of the project by the energy investment arm of US multinational General Electric (GE), GE Energy Financial Services with two Japanese joint venture (JV) partners, Kuni-Umi Asset Management Fund and Toyo Engineering.
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Trina Solar has signed the module supply agreement with Toyo Engineering. The 116MW deal will see the Chinese company deliver around 446,000 Trina Solar TSM-260PC05A modules to a special purpose company, Setouchi Future Creations, which was set up to manage the project.
The solar plant will be built on a former salt field, on a 260 hectare site. Large-scale solar development in Japan has slowed considerably due to the lack of available land and grid connection issues that surfaced last year. While there is an understanding that not many ‘brand new’ large-scale projects are likely to be announced in the near future, a combination of a backlog of previously approved projects and new projects on repurposed land such as landfill sites is expected to keep the large-scale sector busy for at least the next handful of years.
The new plant is expected to be the country’s largest to date, taking the position from a 110MW project that is still under construction by telecoms provider-turned-developer Softbank. Construction on the 231.44MW plant is expected to be completed in the second quarter of 2019.
Meanwhile, Trina Solar and other foreign module suppliers have made gradual inroads into Japan’s solar industry in the past few years. Since the introduction of the feed-in tariff (FiT) in 2012, the Japanese industry has been more open to foreign suppliers. The market was previously considered somewhat protectionist and with a brand-conscious consumer base that favours Japanese makers, but due in part to the impossibility of Japanese manufacturers to meet demand, the picture has changed somewhat.
Ye Chen, a president and representative director for Trina Solar’s Japanese arm recently told PV Tech that she felt Trina’s success in the country owed a great deal to its relationships established with Japanese partners. For instance, mammoth trading company Marubeni supplies Trina Solar with raw materials for module production, while another division of Marubeni then purchases Trina’s finished modules for use on Marubeni’s own projects, to give one example.
An in depth examination of some of the recent issues facing Japan's solar industry can be read in the latest volume of PV Tech Power.