The Japanese Photovoltaic Program

Japan has the largest Photovoltaic installed capacity in the world as a result of the sustained investments made by the country through carefully coordinated Photovoltaic R&D and deployment, leading to a ‘‘virtuous cycle’’ among R&D, market growth, and price reduction. By the end of 2000, the total installed capacity in the country was 317 MW, of which on-grid distributed generation accounted for more than 252 MW. In 2000, Japan produced 128 MW of PV cells and 136 MW of modules, both of which were well over half of the global production. (more…)