Incidentally the electric cost has been rising, slowly but consistently. I just pulled out my bill from a year ago, and it looks like I’m now paying almost ¥1/kWh more than last year. The total amount paid is only less because I’ve made a big effort to reduce my electric use since then (I actually began my cost-cutting measures just before the earthquake). It will be really nice to see if this country sees the same kind of daytime leveling effect that Germany is seeing.

I’m keenly interested in seeing what happens when this FIT goes into effect. Just yesterday the TV news was talking about this, but I couldn’t quite understand what the “42 yen” thing was until I read this article. Everyone is currently going to great lengths to save electricity; even the automatic doors and restroom blow driers are turned off at one of my work locations. And while I haven’t seen much in the way of actual solar panels going up yet, there’s a lot of buzz about it, and I’ve seen several advertisements promoting home solar systems. If I didn’t live in a crummy little rental apartment, I’d have set up my own solar panels long ago.

also, this isn’t a final rate yet — will see what happens in the next step.
but yes, this is a huge green light to solar, wind, and geothermal companies.

Currently, in Europe the cost price for PV is below 15 eurocents per kWh. Somebody should tell these Japanese that the year is 2012, not 2002.