Japan installed 1.6GW of PV from April 2012 to February 2013

Japan installed 1,559MW of PV capacity between 1 April 2012 and 28 February 2013, according to statistics compiled by Japan’s Agency for Natural Resources and Energy and published by the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.

A breakdown of this figure shows that 1,137MW of PV was installed in the residential market, of which just 300,000kW was installed between April and June 2012 before the feed-in tariff was introduced in July.

The remaining 422,000kW was categorised as PV installed in “other than households”. Of this figure, just 2,000kW was installed in the three months before July.

The figures demonstrate the boom the launch of the feed-in tariff has created for the Japanese solar market. The market shows no apparent sign of slowing despite the reduction in incentives enforced in April.