Electricity firms in Japan: Solar shambles

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UK Only Article: 
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Should digital monopolies be broken up?

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Electricity firms in Japan

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Japan has failed to learn from Germany’s renewable-energy mess

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TOKYO

EIGHTY miles north-west of Fukushima’s hulking nuclear corpse, Yauemon Sato, a small businessman, has charged into the solar-power business. Mr Sato has rented land, hired a workforce and lined up ¥80m (.8m) in capital from local investors and banks. His company says it can produce electricity for about 700 households. But the local power utility is refusing to buy more than a quarter of it.
Japan set one of the world’s highest tariffs for renewable energy in 2012, as part of a bid to live without atomic power following the Fukushima disaster. Electricity companies were ordered to pay ¥42 a kilowatt-hour (kWh) to novice producers like Mr Sato. The promise of such a high guaranteed price triggered more than 1.2m applications, mostly for solar-power installations. Japan’s power utilities say they …

Source: Utilities