Arranging social circumstances for spreading photovoltaic power generation systems

In 1990 The Comprehensive Energy Investigation Board discussed and set a target for the introduction of new energy sources. The Investigation Board prepared the energy supply outlook for the years 2000 and 2010, and the target for the introduction of new energy sources was a part of the outlook. In the last few years, however, the actual supply of primary energy sources has made a quite different growth from the original outlook due to the current stagnancy in the development of the nuclear power generation and the crude oil prices stabilizing at the lower level. Under the circumstances, the outlook has been under review. In the new outlook, basic policies are being made to expand the use of new energy sources, with the specific target ratio of new energy to the total energy supply of 1.2% in 1992 (actual), 2.0% in 2000, and 3.0% in 2010. Among the new energy sources,the outlook specifies the introduction of photovoltaic energy, targeting its increase to 400000 kW by 2000 and 4600000 kW by 2010. Thus the supply of the photovoltaic power generation is expected to increase rapidly after the year 2000.