Japan to Revive Subsidies for Home Solar Power Systems

Tokyo, Aug. 26 (Jiji Press)–Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry will request 23.8 billion yen in budget outlays for fiscal 2009 to revive subsidies to promote the use of solar power systems at private homes, officials said Tuesday.

Japan provided subsidies to households adopting solar power systems between 1994 and fiscal 2005, when the subsidy system was scrapped for financial reasons.

But Japan intends to again become the world’s top user of solar power systems. The government adopted an action plan in July aimed at realizing a low-carbon society, a key policy goal embraced by Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda.

In the plan, the government has set targets for boosting the amount of electricity generated by solar power systems tenfold by 2020 and 40-fold by 2030.

In its budget request, the ministry will seek a further 200 million yen to establish a system to monitor commodity market movements in line with an agreement reached at the Group of Eight summit held in Hokkaido in July.

The ministry will also request 900 million yen to develop production systems for bioethanol from nonfood materials. Outlays worth 7.4 billion yen will be requested to promote home use of fuel cells.

As one of its measures to fight global warming, the ministry will seek one billion yen to introduce carbon footprint labeling on products.

The ministry will also request 6 billion yen to provide assistance to small firms hit by high crude oil and raw material prices, a fivefold jump from the amount in the fiscal 2008 initial budget.

The ministry’s total general-account budget requests will reach 1,178.9 billion yen, up 14.9 pct. Excluding outlays for the special account for energy-related measures, the requests total 475.3 billion yen, up 11.5 pct.END

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