Japan Makes Installation of Solar Panels Must for New Homes in Tokyo

Japan – the fifth largest carbon emitter on the planet – is honking for household solar panels for every upcoming home in Tokyo, the capital city of Japan. All new houses that will be built in Tokyo post April 2025 will be required to necessarily install solar power panels. With the objective of cutting down on carbon emissions from the city households, the new regulation is now passed by the local assembly of Tokyo.

Tokyo is also the first prefecture of Japan and the mandate is the first of its kind for a municipality in the country. Specifically, the ruling will need about 50 major developers and builders to ensure that their houses having an area of 2,000 square metres or 21,500 square feet to be fitted with renewable energy power sources. Solar power panels are the most common source to generate green electricity.

Recently, the Governor of Tokyo, Yuriko Koike mentioned that the city has mere 4 per cent buildings that qualify for the installation of solar power panels now.

The local government of Tokyo metropolitan wants to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions in the city to half by the end of this decade. The reduction will be based on the baseline of 2000 levels.

According to reports, Risako Narikiyo, a member from Tomin First no Kai, Koike’s regional party, stated in the local body assembly, “In addition to the existing global climate crisis, we face an energy crisis with a prolonged Russia-Ukraine war. There is no time to waste.”

Japan wants to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 – the middle of the century – but the travesty is that the country had switched to coal-fired power plants following the nuclear reactors’ conundrum in 2011 Fukushima tsunami.

In September, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government shared plans according to which it was mulling to make the solar installation in households mandatory. The plan envisaged in September that the rules will apply to the buildings and homes that will have a total floor space of less than 2,000 square meters but will exclude the ones that will have a total floor space of less than 20 square meters.