A total of 27 companies won the Organization for Cross-regional Coordination of Transmission Operators (OCCTO), Japan’s 26^th solar power auction for projects of at least 250 kW, securing 75.4 MW out of the original auctioned capacity of 163 MW under the country’s Feed-in Premium (FIP) program.

The FIP program was introduced in 2022 to promote renewable energy by adding a premium to the market price of power generated from renewables.

The winning bidders are as follows:

Thirty-three projects had applied for qualifications, and 27 submitted real price bids. All the price bids were won after the auction’s third round.

The maximum allowed bid price was ¥8.75 (~$0.057)/kWh. The winning bid prices ranged from ¥4.97 (~$0.032)/kWh to ¥8.75 (~$0.057)/kWh, with an average of ¥7.13 (~$0.046)/kWh.

One of the winning companies, Daiichi Solar Power Generation, had its winning bid cancelled in the 23^rd auction, which preceded this one, because it did not secure the project land.

In the 23^rd auction, OCCTO awarded 93 MW to five bidders. The highest winning price was ¥6.98 (~$0.045)/kWh, and the weighted average winning price was ¥5.06 (~$0.033)/kWh.

Global solar installations hit a record high of 597 GW in 2024, a 33% increase year-over-year from 2023, according to a new report from SolarPower Europe.

Japan accounted for 1% of the total installations during the year. The U.S. constituted 8% of the total installations, India 5%, Brazil 3%, Germany 3%, Spain 2%, Turkey 2%, Italy 1%, and France 1%.

After global installations crossed the 2 TW solar capacity milestone in late 2024, the report predicted that global installations can reach 1 TW of solar capacity per year by the decade’s end.

In 2023, the Japan Bank for International Cooperation and the Government of India signed an agreement to establish a $600 million India-Japan Fund to address climate and environmental challenges.