New feed-in tariff system a rush to get renewables in play | The Japan Times Online

On July 1, a new law takes effect requiring utilities to purchase electricity generated from five renewable energy sources at a fixed price for a set length of time, under what is known as a feed-in tariff system.

The law was approved on the morning of March 11, 2011, by then Prime Minister Naoto Kan's Cabinet, just a few hours before the Great East Japan Earthquake and monster tsunami hit, claiming some 19,000 lives and putting the government's long-pushed nuclear power goals totally out of public favor.

It was the last piece of legislation passed in the Diet on Aug. 26, over stiff opposition from industry lobbies, utilities, and the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry. Kan quit later that day.

The article has a breakdown of the planned rates. Most run for 20 years.

• Rates for solar encourage larger plants: the rate is uniform (and rather generous at c. €0.42/kWh), but plants under 10 kW get it for ten years only.
  
• OTOH rates for wind encourage small-scale wind: while the c. €0.23/kWh rate for large wind is generous, sub-20-kW turbines get two and a half times that much! No differentation for off-shore.
  
• Minihydro rates are also generous, and favour smaller plants (three levels set between the lower wind and the solar rate).
  
• I suspect geothermal rates aren't that generous: the higher one, for sub-15-MW plants, is set to the same level as solar.
  
• There is biomass, too.

The high rates are explicitly aimed at creating a boom in the first three years. However, there is no word about the method of degression thereafter.

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}