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要旨
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This paper illustrates inherent forces distorting renewable energy policies by examining the impact of the Feed-in Tariffs on the diffusion, economics, efficiency improvement, and industry competitiveness of rooftop PV systems in Japan. Results shows that, although PV system installation has rapidly grown after implementation of FIT, the market price of the systems has remained high compared to those in foreign markets. Stability of profit margins at the distribution and installation stages seemed to be the main source for the continued high PV module price. We also found that the experience curve for BOS, especially that for installation is flat. These imply that FIT implementation induced little downstream improvement in economies of scale or efficiency. We also demonstrate that positive influences of market expansion stemming from the FIT on the competitiveness of domestic PV module manufacturers are very limited. After only one-year profitability, performance has fallen sharply with domestic firms announcing financial losses due to shrinkage of the market and increased competition. Based on these observations, we describe a mechanism whereby policymakers designing and implementing a renewable energy policy biased towards diffusion limits realized improvement in efficiency and industry competitiveness.
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