City of Takamatsu Introduces a Subsidy for Residents to Install Solar Heating Systems

Copyright Takamatsu City

Officials in the Japanese city of Takamatsu, in Kagawa Prefecture, announced April 1, 2009, that the city had introduced a subsidy for the installation of solar heating systems as part of its efforts to address global warming and reduce its environmental impacts. By making use of its geographic advantage of having a relatively high number of sunlight hours per year, the city plans to widely introduce the use of clean solar energy among residential homes.

The solar heating system under the subsidy includes a solar heat collector and a thermal storage tank suitable for installation on the roof of a house. The system collects the solar-generated heat at a high rate of efficiency and allows the collected heat to be used for water heating and air-conditioning through a system of pump-forced circulation of an antifreeze liquid inside the solar collector and the thermal storage tank.

As the part of the requirements under the program, a system should be suitable for installation on the roof of a house and not yet have been installed (not used), and so on. The subsidy covers up to one-tenth of each system's costs, with an upper limit of 50,000 yen (about U.S.$476). Homeowners can apply for the subsidy from Aril 2009 to March 2010. Applications are needed before starting the installation and after its completion.

The city intends to reduce the environmental impacts to the earth as much as possible by introducing this system.

Tokyo Gov't Aims for 1 Million KW of Solar Power （Related JFS article）
http://www.japanfs.org/en/pages/026985.html
Tokyo to Introduce Green Power Certification System Using Solar Heat (Related JFS article)
http://www.japanfs.org/en/pages/028615.html

Posted: 2009/07/12 06:00:15 AM