How Is Agrivoltaics Being Carried Out Cautiously in Japan?

Taiwan opened up farmland to solar power, and some green energy operators and farmers twisted the legal interpretation and probed administrative loopholes, causing the widespread phenomenon of "real power generation, fake farming," where many areas under solar panels either have no crops planted at all or only plant crops in form while in substance making a living from selling green energy.

By contrast, in Japan, which opened up farmland to solar power in the same year as Taiwan, the promotion of the "Solar sharing" policy has been extremely cautious and careful; in terms of regulations, besides emphasizing the subjectivity of local farmers and agricultural management, it has conducted in-depth research on the installation density of solar panels and the light required for crop growth beneath them.

Compared with Taiwan, where regulations are insufficiently thorough and relevant research is lacking, and where hastily relaxing restrictions on farmland solar power has sparked controversy, Japan's approach to implementing "Solar sharing" is worth learning from.

Taiwan's Council of Agriculture amended the "Regulations Governing the Review of Applications for Use of Agricultural Land for Agricultural Facilities" in October 2013, allowing agricultural production facilities in special agricultural zones and general agricultural zones to apply to install ancillary green energy facilities, and solar panels began to be erected piece by piece on many farmland plots. Japan's Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries had already issued as early as the end of March of the same year a "temporary conversion permit" allowing the use of posts on farmland to install solar panels, hoping that through "Solar sharing," the fallow farmland accounting for 8% of Japan's farmland could be effectively utilized and contribute to the rural economy. After two years, what has the actual application situation been like?

Atsushi Omura, representative director of the Solar Sharing Association, introducing small solar panels installed on a greenhouse

Solar Sharing Association: http://solar-sharing.org

CHO Technical Research Institute: http://www.d3.dion.ne.jp/~higashi9/sola1.htm

(The [Japan Correspondence] series of articles is funded by a special grant from the Jianzhen Environmental Education Foundation, but the foundation does not interfere at all with news topic selection or interview writing, ensuring journalistic independence.)

(To read the Japan Correspondence series, please click here.)