Comments on: Japan May Require Solar Panels on All New Buildings by 2030

By: Touma Sakawaki

Touma Sakawaki — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 00:40:00 +0000

goooooooooooooooo japan!

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Sat, 28 May 2011 16:51:15 +0000

[…] we previewed early in the week, Japan’s Prime Minister made some big renewable energy announcements at the […]

By: Zachary Shahan

Zachary Shahan — Wed, 25 May 2011 09:32:29 +0000

Jon K, I agree, idealistically. On the other hand, I haven’t seen anyone set policies like this one that were stronger. When I first read about this, I didn’t run across the target date (2030) for awhile. Stuck it in my headline to be open about the time frame, which could definitely be much better. And, hopefully, in practice, it will be. But still think setting such a policy is helpful and nice to see Japan do so.

By: Jon K

Jon K — Wed, 25 May 2011 03:28:00 +0000

2030 is 19 years from now. Saying they will do something 19 years from now isn’t impressive considering the technology is available today. With any luck, the solar guys will hit grid parity well before then and governments won’t have to require builders to do anything. They’ll do it on their own because It will simply be a cheaper way to get power.

What would be impressive is requiring some amount of solar capacity on new buildings by say 2013 instead of by 2030.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 24 May 2011 06:46:00 +0000

I can’t say I’m an expert on this, but from what I’ve read, Japan is a
leader in energy conservation. Historically, hasn’t done a ton on the
renewable energy front but implemented tremendous energy conservation
policies. Not sure about its insulation policies, in particular.

By: James Elliott

James Elliott — Tue, 24 May 2011 02:52:00 +0000

Nice, I guess, but what we really need to see first is “Japan To Require All New Homes to be Built With Reasonable Amounts of Insulation”.

Solar power is nice but requiring building methods to use levels of insulation required in the West would have a much cheaper impact. But not nearly as sexy, I guess.