Proposal Papers for Policy Making and Governmental Action toward Low Carbon Society

LCS-FY2021-PP-03

Potential and Distribution of Photovoltaic Power Generation Considering the Efficient Land Use

Summary

 The introduction of renewable energy should be accelerated toward the realization of carbon neutrality in 2050. While photovoltaic power generation is considered to be one of the main power sources for the future, it is considered that the potential for future development is low in Japan, where there is little flat land. In this proposal, we studied the installation location and installation method of photovoltaic power generation facilities and calculated the potential for 2050.

 As an assumption for the calculation, 40% of the farmland will be used for farm-based photovoltaic power generation, and the abandoned farmland will be used as photovoltaic-power-generation land. We assumed the use of all the roofs of buildings, including residential houses, for power generation, disposal of the currently increasing vacant houses, and installation of open-air photovoltaic power generation facilities in the vacant lot. Considering the above as the photovoltaic power generation infrastructure for 2050, its potential is calculated to be 700 GW of generation capacity and 1,040 TWh/year of annual power generation in 2050. This annual power generation is comparable to the current annual power supply and demand, and photovoltaic power generation will be the main power source in the future.
 Photovoltaic power generation is a variable renewable energy (VRE), and it is necessary to develop a power system combined with power storage facilities such as pumped storage power generation for stable power supply. When the domestic distribution of photovoltaic power generation calculated in this proposal and the distribution of new pumped storage power generation, which has been proposed by LCS, are superimposed, it is clear that they are both widely and evenly distributed, and it is possible to develop a power system that provides stable power supply for each region.

All Pages

Related Proposal Papers