Japan's missing piece of clean power

Although Japan has made efforts in expanding solar by going from almost zero to 10% of its electricity mix in the last decade, Japan’s wind has not fared as well. In 2022, wind generated less than 1% of Japan’s electricity. For the rest of the G7, wind power has risen to 11% of total electricity production and shown an increasingly more important role than solar, with over twice the electricity coming from wind than solar in 2022.

This year, two studies have been released that show pathways towards a predominantly decarbonised electricity system by 2035. 

These are “The 2035 Japan Report: Plummeting Costs of Solar, Wind, and Batteries Can Accelerate Japan’s Clean and Independent Electricity Future” from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and “Proposal for the 2035 Energy Mix: Toward Decarbonizing Electricity with Renewable Energy” from the Renewable Energy Institute (REI). 

The pathways forecast that clean power growth–led by wind and solar–will allow Japan’s electricity to largely decarbonise by 2035. The Berkeley Lab’s report forecasts Japan to achieve 90% decarbonised electricity by 2035, while the REI shows 80%.

The two studies’ scenarios are advances upon Japan’s 6th Strategic Energy Plan which only expects 59% of electricity decarbonised by 2030. With a solar share target of up to 16%, Japan’s current energy plan’s ambition for wind is only one third that of solar. Despite such massive wind potential that could be unlocked, Japan’s plan has unfortunately continued to leave plenty of room for coal generation in 2030, with a share of 19%.

Japan’s 6th Strategic Energy Plan plans to build only 5.7 GW of offshore wind by 2030. That’s just 4% of the G7 total, even though Japan had 17% of the electricity fossil generation of the G7 in 2022. Prior to this plan in 2020, 10 GW for 2030 was touted in Japan’s Vision for Offshore Wind Power Industry, but even that would only be 7% of the G7 total. 

The United Kingdom has the highest ambition for offshore wind, aiming to achieve 50 GW by 2030 (British Energy Security Strategy, April 2022), while the United States aims to install 30 GW of offshore wind (Biden Administration, March 2021). Germany also aims to install 30 GW of offshore wind power by 2030 (Offshore wind power law, July 2022).

G7 leaders agreed last year to “commit to a goal of achieving predominantly decarbonised electricity sectors by 2035”. But of course, the word “predominantly” is highly contested.

For the UK, US, Canada and Germany it means 100%. All four countries have already made commitments to this effect. That leaves France, which is already 90% clean power due to its large nuclear fleet, and Italy, which has committed to phase out coal by 2025, but is yet to publish a plan to replace gas with clean power.