A groundbreaking ceremony has taken place a 25.8MW solar plant which is to be built in Japan, on the site of a former golf course in the south west of the country, by Japanese home building corporation Sekisui House.
The site is located in Kagoshima prefecture, on the southern island of Kyushu, which has a sub-tropical climate and relatively low population density. Kyushu has been the focus of several large solar projects since the introduction of the feed-in-tariff (FiT) in 2012. The power plant will host 86,100 panels, with the project requiring around ¥9.2 billion (US$92 million) in investment.
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Japan’s generous FiT policy, which despite being cut by 10% since last year still stands at ¥37.8 (US$0.38) per KWh, has made the construction of what has been dubbed the ‘mega solar’ park a feasible business opportunity for Sekisui House.
The electricity generated will be sold to the national grid on mainland Japan with the price set at ¥1.14 billion (US$11.4 million) per year, with around 28.5MWh of electricity produced per year, enough to power around 7,900 family homes. Sekisui House put the expected completion date as August 2014.
Sekisui House’s core business is the building of detached houses, with a large proportion of homeowners in Japan generally preferring to build new properties rather than move into vacated houses, where possible. The company has since diversified into the construction of medium and high-rise developments and urban development projects. The company held ¥186,554 million in capital stock as of 31st January 2013.
