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5 Comments

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  sharky1 at 06:26 AM JST - 2nd November

  What about excess power generated from wind??? It is much cheaper per kilowatt hour than solar energy...

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  gaijintraveller at 07:52 AM JST - 2nd November

  If I understand this correctly, the electricity companies will buy the solar electricity, but households will pay for it through a surcharge.

  "The state will not be required to spend even 1 yen." "The electricity companies will collect a monthly surcharge of around 30 yen from every household and organization using electricity in the country." Some deal.

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  as_the_crow_flies at 01:43 PM JST - 2nd November

  I think what the article is trying to say is that the cost of beefing up the scheme will be spread among all users (about 360 yen a year). On the other hand, if you have solar panels on your roof and generate more energy than you use, power companies are upping the rate they will pay you for energy to 48yen/KwH. This will make people who have solar panels win out, compared to people who just consume electricity. I don:t know about the actual figures, but the idea sounds fair enough to me.

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  glycol57 at 10:01 PM JST - 2nd November

  Photoelectric panels are nice ... but take a decade or more to pay for themselves. The price of such devices must drop by at least half, preferably by two-thirds, before widespread application of solar-electric becomes truely practical.

  As a huge percentage of electric power is used simply heating things, a more logical direction at this time is a push for solar-THERMAL systems. This is a much cheaper, lower-tech, way of using solar energy that individual home-owners, businesses and apartment complexes can deploy and use to achieve substantial savings on their power bills. Solar-thermal can often pay for itself in a single year. As a bonus, the major electrical suppliers will not need to enlarge their "infrastructure" - lines, transformers, power-stations, manpower etc. - so there will be no excuse increase the price of electricity.

  Somebody mentioned windmills. They are "OK" ... but really aren't anything that individuals can dabble in due to the extremely high initial cost of the giant wind turbine/generator units (and the land they sit upon). Perhaps the electric suppliers, unburdened if people use more solar-thermal, could put their money into wind turbines ?

  There is no "solution" to energy needs ... but "solutionS". A little of this, a little of that ; whatever is appropriate, affordable and effective for a given place and need.

  And, oh yes ... the other side of the equation is EFFICIENCY - making the most out of the energy you harvest. There is a definite market for dirt-cheap OLED-based lighting panels too.

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  as_the_crow_flies at 08:35 AM JST - 4th November

  EFFICIENCY - making the most out of the energy you harvest. There is a definite market for dirt-cheap OLED-based lighting panels too

  .

  Too true. They could try closing a few shop doors and switching a few trillion unneccessary lights out, too. Force companies to do energy audits. Fine truckies and taxi drivers who idle their engines for hours a day just to run an aircon in October to keep their tootsies cool, or save them having to wind down the window to get rid of the tobacco smoke.

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