New Solar Homes: Japanese Homebuilders Helping the Fight for Energy Independence

One of the striking differences between the U.S. and Japanese solar PV markets is the number of new solar homes. In Japan, homebuilders promote “smart homes” to differentiate their products and appeal to new homebuyers who are conscious about saving energy amidst rising electricity costs.

In Japan, the new PV home market represented 30 percent of the total residential PV market in 2012 or over 370 MW of PV installation. In California this market accounted for 13 percent of the total residential PV market during the same period.

In California under the New Solar Home Partnership (NSHP), which provides incentives to home builders, there has been a little over 8,000 new solar homes built and rebated between 2007 and June 2013. This program has a goal to place solar energy systems on 50 percent of new homes by the end of 2016. Comparatively, according to the Japan Prefabricated Construction Association, 58.4 percent of detached, prefabricated homes built by 10 leading manufacturers during 2011 were sold with PV. The Association is planning to boost this number to 80 percent by 2020. Key solar homebuilders include Sekisui House, Sekisui Heim, Daiwa House and Misawa Home.




Sekisui Heim, a housing business unit of Sekisui Chemical, holds a Guinness World Record for “the most solar powered houses built.” The company has built and sold over 100,000 PV new homes between 1997 and 2011 while Lennar, which claims to be the America’s No. 1 solar homebuilder, has sold less than 2,000 solar home since 2006.

On an annual basis, Sekisui Heim sold over 9,000 PV new homes in Japan in 2012. Better yet, Sekisui House, Japan's biggest homebuilder, sold over 21,300 new solar homes during FY2012 (February 2012 through January 2013), 12.8 percent more than FY2011.


A Different Buyer Experience

In the U.S., prospective homebuyers often visit a model home at a particular homebuilder’s development site in a particular community. In Japan, homebuyers visit “Jutaku Tenjijo (Housing Exhibition Park)” where a dozen home developers showcase their latest new homes side-by-side. More new homes come with PV system as a standard feature, not an option. Some are equipped with building-inegrated photovoltaics (BIPV) to accommodate tiled roofs and aesthetic preferences, while others feature a flat-roof PV solution. 

A representative from Sekisui Heim said 85 percent of all new homes the company sold last year was equipped with a PV system, closely followed by 84 percent of Sekisui House. Ichijo Co Ltd, one of the Top 10 Homebuilder in Japan, achieved the highest rate of 90 percent in 2012. In 2010 Ichijo Co. developed and started promoting “Yume-Hatsuden System,” which is a large PV system with a special financing mechanism. The financing mechanism features zero upfront costs for the PV system and owners are allowed to repay the system cost by selling their solar-generated electricity with a 1 percent interest rate.

Ichijo’s representative stated the average PV system size for its new homes is 12 kW, while the national average for solar new home is about 4 kW. The company promotes not only installing PV on rooftops, but also on a homeowner’s carport to maximize revenues received by the national FIT policy.

Fighting Rising Electricity Rates with Solar Communities

As the nation’s electricity supply becomes a serious issue, home developers have expanded their product offerings from smart homes to smart communities.

Electricity rates are going up in Japan due to the higher costs of buying imported fossil fuels in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster and the subsequent shutting down of nuclear reactors for safety concerns. All but two of Japan’s 50 reactors are currently idled for safety assessments.

In May, Kansai Electric Power Co., the second largest electric utility, and Kyushu Electric Power Co. raised residential electricity rates to offset their higher fuel costs of running thermal power plants. Kansai Electric Power’s rates went up by an average of 9.75 percent while Kyushu Electric Power raised its rate by an average of 6.23 percent. Tohoku Electric Power Co. and Shikoku Electric Power Co. will raise their residential rates in August by 11.41 percent and a 10.94 percent, respectively.

To fight against rate hike and to support restoration efforts, Sekisui House has created the first net-zero-smart-house community in northeastern Japan where the devastating earthquakes and tsunami hit. The housing development is called “Smart Common Stage Mitazono,” which includes 40 Zero-Energy Homes, combining energy-efficient construction and appliances with PV, fuel-cell and storage battery systems. The 40 homes together can produce 163 MWh annually, of which 143 MWh will be sold to the utility.

Besides the Mitazono, Sekisui House has developed 12 other smart-house communities nationwide.

Daiwa House, the second largest homebuilder in Japan, has released the nation’s first fully energy-independent town project in Osaka. The “SMA X ECO Town Harumidai” consists of 65 Zero-Energy homes, all equipped with PV, lithium-ion battery and HEMS. Besides on individual housing units, common areas such as a community center or park have PV systems. This allows the entire community to supply all necessary energy.

While the high ROI triggered by the national FIT program has accelerated the growth of the large-scale, non-residential segment, the solar new home market is driven by homeowners’ needs to live peacefully and safely without worrying about energy supply and cost of energy at their own home.



Source: Renewable Energy World

Dick Smith wrong on Energy Costs - Renewables are Cheapest

"The only thing stopping an even faster rush for rooftop solar installs on domestic residences are discriminatory policies which prevent householders subject to a previous feed-in-tariff schemes from upgrading and adding more panels to their systems, and utilities that unreasonably limit the size of new systems"

Dick Smith has got the relative costs of fossil fuels, nuclear energy and renewable power all mixed up in his latest polemic, “Ten Bucks A Litre.”

I am from Energy security think-tank Zero Emissions and I wrote the Zero Carbon Australia Stationary Energy Plan which is briefly showcased during the film.

The stationary energy plan, the first of its kind to show that Australia could run on 100% renewable energy a combination of wind power, rooftop solar photovoltaic, and solar thermal with storage (featured in the film), along with a huge “mining” effort to find energy efficiency in housing, commerce and industry. It was a landmark that helped caused the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO), the organisation that runs Australia’s electricity supply, to write and publish this year its own plan and validate much of our work.

Whether you care about climate change or not, we’re moving rapidly away from coal because domestic and international banks, including the World Bank, will no longer invest in coal fired power. And a shift to gas would involve the burning of coal seam gas, due to a massive upswing in demand in Asia especially Japan the cost of gas here is becoming prohibitive.

The anticipated three-fold increase in the cost of gas (once we’re linked to international markets) means that wind power is now already the cheapest source of new energy capacity. And it is also cheaper for householders to generate their own power during the day from rooftop solar than to buy it through the meter from the big power companies. The only thing stopping an even faster rush for rooftop solar installs on domestic residences are discriminatory policies which prevent householders subject to a previous feed-in-tariff schemes from upgrading and adding more panels to their systems, and utilities that unreasonably limit the size of new systems.

The cost of gas being is being driven by the building of LNG export terminals in Queensland. Once we have a sizable link through these processing and port facilities to send gas including coal seam gas and shale out to the world’s markets, the gas market will mirror the oil market and always react to world pricing signals. We will never go back to having a sheltered market with gas as a cheap source of energy. What has really driven this international price up is the Nuclear disaster at Fukushima.


The Fukushima nuclear disaster two years back closed down a massive industrial manufacturing area for good, causing the abandonment of billions of dollars of factories and their robotic tooling and other plant. The cleanup bill is estimated at $60-70 billion and the country only has two out of 54 nuclear reactors operating. What’s more, it turns out that the two reactors that are operating were built atop a major earthquake fault line. So it is quite likely that they will be shut down in September, leaving Japan with no nuclear power plants at all.

Nuclear is the most expensive option when you take into account the external factors, followed by coal and coal seam gas. These external factors include devastating effects on health, agricultural output, land degradation, acid rain and the ability for us to feed ourselves, and of course in the case of the fossil fuels, climate change.

Already, in India and China renewables are either the cheapest form of new generation, wind is beating fossil fuels in Brazil and elsewhere. Even in Australia, wind and solar are considered the cheapest option for new capacity. Further price reductions are all about economies of scale, and economies of scale is what India and China have a lot of. Only renewable energy’s flagship technologies of wind power, rooftop solar and solar thermal with storage have small footprints and superior environmental performance, with innovation improving this all the time.

Dick Smith needs to revise his conclusion. If we want cheap power for the 21st century we need to invest much more in renewables, if we want to flounder, get sick and risk our economies then nuclear and fossil fuels will do the trick.

I look forward to a series of town hall debates with Dick Smith on the right way to a renewable future for Australia.


Source: Renew Economy