Photo/Illutration A facility generating electricity through solar and wind power in Rokkasho village in Aomori Prefecture (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

Renewable energy sources accounted for 25 percent of Japan’s overall electricity output in 2023, but the country’s standing is still lower than the average global share of more than 30 percent.

Japan’s figure is even dwarfed by the shares of some European countries, which topped 80 percent.

Preliminary figures by the Tokyo-based Institute for Sustainable Energy Polices found that the share of renewables more than doubled from about 10 percent in fiscal 2011, prior to the start of the feed-in-tariff system introduced in 2012 to promote clean energy.

Hironao Matsubara, a chief researcher at ISEP responsible for the study, said the gap between Japan and EU countries was widening.

“Back in 2000 or so, there was not a big disparity between Japan and Europe,” he said. “But Japan has been far left behind since because Europe moved to build a system and market to cover more than half of its energy needs with solar and wind power.”

The nonprofit organization calculated the ratio of individual energy sources based on statistics on power supply and demand compiled by the Agency for Natural Resources and Energy and other relevant data, including the amount of electricity generated for household use.

The findings, which were released on June 10, showed that renewable energy sources represented 25.7 percent of the total output, up by 3 percentage points from 2022.

Of the renewables, solar accounted for 11.2 percent, hydraulic power 7.5 percent and biomass 5.7 percent.

The share of wind power finally reached 1 percent, which is negligible given that wind power is a major supplier among renewables in the global market.

In Japan, solar and wind power represented half of all the electricity generated by renewable sources.

The study also showed that May is the month that saw the largest share of renewables, at 35.1 percent. Output exceeded consumption during that period, resulting in curbed solar power generation.

According to Ember, a British energy think tank, renewables topped 30 percent of the global market, reaching the milestone for the first time.

EU countries are far ahead of the rest of the world in their use of renewables, at 44.3 percent.

In Denmark, 87.6 percent of its energy demands were created by renewables. Denmark was followed by Austria, at 84.5 percent, and Sweden, at 69.2 percent.

Germany and Spain surpassed the 50 percent mark for the first time, representing 52.4 percent and 50.1 percent, respectively.

Ember’s report also showed that 30.9 percent of energy output in China came from renewables. The corresponding figure for the United States was 22.7 percent.

As for other energy sources in Japan, thermal power stood at 66.6 percent, down by 5.8 points from the previous year.

Coal fired power came in at 28.3 percent, an increase of 0.5 points from the previous year.

Nuclear energy’s share came to 7.7 percent, the highest since the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster.

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