研究目的
This article examines the role of recent reforms to Japan’s energy governance regime in stimulating fixed capital investments in solar photovoltaic (PV) systems and analyzes the investment trends and land use changes that are emerging as a result.
研究成果
The case of Japan’s solar PV boom highlights that the power of capital to reconfigure existing socioecological relations through fixed capital investments in renewable energy is not unlimited but remains embedded in specific national political contexts with specific institutional and geographic conditions. The reforms undertaken by METI following the shutdown of Japan’s nuclear capacity reconfigured the institutions of Japan’s vertical energy regime and stimulated accelerated investment into the horizontal regime of solar PV. Yet, in producing the conditions for a socioecological fix, the Japanese state did not yield its administrative capacity to steer or 'pilot' investment and accumulation dynamics in the electric power sector.