Impact of the feed-in-tariff exemption on energy consumption in Japanese industrial plants

Abstract

To promote renewable energy deployment, Japan introduced a feed-in tariff policy in 2012, financed through a surcharge on electricity prices for consumers. The Japanese government also offered a discount system for electricity-intensive industrial plants, exempting them from paying full surcharges. Using monthly plant-level data from 2005 to 2018, this study evaluated the exemption system’s impact on electricity and fossil fuel consumption for plants in the iron and steel, chemical products, and pulp and paper sectors. Our results show that the exempted iron and steel plants decreased electricity purchase and consumption 18.62% and 17.88% after 2017, respectively. This decrease is attributed to the introduction of an electricity efficiency after 2017. It is worth noting, however, that the revision of the scheme did not affect the chemical, pulp and paper sectors. In this sense, a stronger efficiency requirement might be warranted to ensure the decrease in electricity consumption for all sectors. Nevertheless, we estimate that roughly 7 million tCO₂ have been avoided thanks to the decrease in electricity consumption in the iron and steel sector.