METI

Rising interconnection costs and constraints are impacting Japan’s ability to contract large-scale solar capacity, according to a project winner in the country’s latest PV auction.

Japan has awarded just 39.8MW of PV capacity in its fifth solar auction, despite there being more than 416MW initially on offer.

The tender produced lower bids than previous rounds but again allocated less generation capacity than planned. The Japanese government initially accepted bids for a combined 589.9 MW but ended up assigning only 195.8 MW of capacity. The final average price for procured solar power was $0.1222/kWh.