Governing the Fix: Energy Regimes, Accumulation Dynamics, and Land Use Changes in Japan’s Solar Photovoltaic Boom

Abstract

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. Following the March 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, the Japanese government passed a feed-in tariff (FIT) to incentivize renewable energy production, followed by the liberalization of the small-scale retail power market. Although recent geographical scholarship suggests that fixed capital investments in renewable energy might function as a socioecological fix for capital accumulation, analyzing these reforms through the lens of institutional political economy reveals a crucial limitation facing investors seeking renewed accumulation through a socioecological fix: The state, as the extraeconomic agent charged with sustaining accumulation at the national scale, maintains the capacity to shape conditions of profitability in the electric power sector. Additionally, this article offers a typology of investment patterns and land use changes that have resulted from the growing market in renewables. The guaranteed return on investment offered by the FIT has stimulated demand for space to site solar projects. This demand, coupled with Japan’s strict farmland protections, has led investors to pursue projects in novel configurations that challenge established assumptions about power density and the land demands of solar PV. By bringing the insights of Marxian state theory to bear on the political ecology of fixed infrastructure, this article contributes an empirical analysis of the political ecological dimensions of state action in governing renewable energy transitions.