Land of the rising sun runs increasingly on solar power

UPDATE: Shortly after this blog was written, Reuters reported that Japan will shortly introduce a plan to wean itself off of nuclear energy entirely by as soon as 2030. This development will doubtless result in an entirely new energy policy and eventually an entirely new generation mix for the country.

In many spots around the globe, power producers and utilities are looking to deconcentrate their grids away from large, centralized power generators and steer them more toward distributed generation. There are cons to this approach, but the benefits are attractive, at least in theory.

While some countries have the luxury of carefully weighing these pros and cons, there is one country that's being forced by current events to decentralize, and rapidly, just to keep the lights on.

New research indicates that post-Fukushima Japan is now the world's third-largest solar energy markets, with nearly 5 GW of installed solar capacity. Germany and Italy, respectively, are the first and second. In some ways, though, this is a return to form for Japan rather than a new development.

In the 1990s and the early 2000s, Japan was the world leader in solar. Due to the cancelation of programs that backed solar (as a result of the government response to the "Lost Decade" depression in that country) and an accompanying shift toward nuclear power, Japan took its eye off the ball when it came to solar energy.

Then, of course, came the earthquake, the tsunami and the Fukushima disaster.

(Photo credit: Shutterstock)

Since then, Japan's government has taken a second look at solar, and added more than 1 GW of solar capacity last year. The majority of this new generation is grid-connected, with all the benefits and drawbacks that adds.

With the adoption of new solar-friendly regulations and generous tariffs, companies across Japan's economic spectrum have announced plans to set up solar parks and install rooftop solar arrays on their properties. To boot, Japan is also one of the world leaders in manufacturing solar cells, modules and other key materials that support the solar energy supply chain.

Can a country replace a highly productive nuclear fleet with solar energy? That question raises further questions, but it's certainly a daring strategy and it will be interesting to watch unfold.