The Japanese government will introduce a new subsidy for home owners who want to convert to solar power. The program is designed to reduce solar power conversion costs by almost 10 percent.

Japan is a nation that has virtually no natural resources. Oil is used to meet nearly 60% of Japan’s total energy needs and almost all it is imported.

Economic and security concerns compel Japan to seek other sources of energy in order to remain competitive as a world economic power.

Home use solar power systems now generate 1.4 million kilowatts of electricity a year. With the new subsidies the government hopes to increase current solar power generation rates by 10 fold before 2020 and 40 fold by 2030.

The Japanese government has been involved in promoting solar power since the mid nineties. They introduced a subsidy system that was designed to help home owners meet the high costs of solar panels of the time, around 60 thousand dollars per household.

The government offered to pay half the cost for solar panel installation in the hopes that home owners would consider alternate energy and to stimulate manufacturers to develop cheaper production methods.

The plan worked on both fronts. Solar panel sales went up and the costs came down by nearly 30 percent. The government slowly phased out their subsidy program thinking that the stimulus that they had introduced would grow on its own.

The current crisis in oil prices has spurred the Japanese government to introduce a new subsidy program.

Houses equipped with solar panels are still unusual in Japan but that is slowly changing.

In Kobe there are new housing developments being built with solar panels pre-installed.

Rika Suzuki owns a new house in Kobe and while she doesn’t necessarily consider herself an environmentalist, she likes not paying for electricity.

“It depends on the sunlight,” Suzuki says. “But on a nice sunny days. Even though we use all the electronic devices, I feel like we are receiving energy from the sun.”

The new houses have an internal electronic display that tells the home owner how much energy their solar panels are producing and how much power is being consumed in the home. Any extra electricity gets sold back to the local power company.

The Kobe solar panels are produced by the Kyocera company who has been in business for over 30 years. Luckily making solar panels were not the main focus of their business. It is only in the last few years that the company’s solar division began to make a profit.

“Last 32 years, we couldn’t make any money at all, but were spending a lot,” said Isao Yukama, who has been working for Kyocera all of those 32 years.

The company was founded by Kazuo Inamori in 1959. Mr Inamori is considered to be some what of a management guru in Japanese business circles.

“At the same time he is a philosopher,” said Yukama. “He talks about work for the people and the society.”

Yukama proudly displays a photo of a camel in Tunisia carrying solar panels that were used to power a small refrigerator with medical supplies being delivered to a remote location.

Efforts from companies like Kyocera and with the government subsidies the interest in home solar power has gotten off the ground as a viable energy source in Japan. There are still many miles to go but today a solar installation costs 20 thousand dollars compared to a 60 thousand dollar cost 20 years ago.

The Japanese government wants the cost of solar power panels to drop by another 50 percent, a level it feels will lead to widespread solar panel use and steer the nation away from their imported oil dependency.

Â