Exploratory study of PV industry, 1990–2008: Lesson from Japan and Germany

The world is moving into a new era, the Go Green Revolution (GGR) because of the earth´s current global warming and rising seas. Photovoltaic (PV) has the highest cost reduction potential among all renewable energy sources (RES) and has experienced rapid growth. To design efficient policy instruments, one needs knowledge about what challenges face the growth of the new technology. The purpose of this study is to analyze the growth and the declining factors of Japanese PV market during 1990-2008. In order to understand the causes that hindering the diffusion of the PV business, comparative case studies of Japan and German PV sector was performed. The termination of incentive policy is the key reason for the Japanese PV market decline. German policy is long term and the incentives are more generous than Japanese incentive program. Moreover, Japanese environmental policy is not favourable for the growth of the renewable energy. Another reason is the firm´s lack of future plan for increasing production capacity. The termination of incentive policy is the main blocking factor of the decline of PV market in Japan.