In Japan, the government last Tuesday said it would extend the...

In Japan, the government last Tuesday said it would extend the areas inside national parks where developers can conduct surveys and build geothermal power plants. Those parks contain an estimated 80 per cent of Japan's estimated 23GW of geothermal resources.

Japan has at present 537MW of installed geothermal capacity, accounting for just 0.2 per cent of its total power generation output, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance. No new projects of more than 10 megawatts have been developed since 1996. However the country is now looking to speed up solar, wind and geothermal deployment following the decision to scale back nuclear plans following the March 2011 Fukushima disaster.

Bloomberg - New Energy Finance