Japan announces fourth round of NatRef subsidy recipients

Subsidies were awarded to Seven Eleven Japan and Lawson (both convienience store operators), for 11 store locations. This completes the natural refrigerant subsidies awarded for FY 2018.

Japanese Ministry of the Environment logo.

Japan's Ministry of Environment (MOE) has announced the fourth and final round of recipients awarded subsidies for natural refrigerant system installations for the 2018 fiscal year.

Subsidies were granted to two companies:

Seven Eleven Japan: 10 store locations.
Lawson: 1 store location.

Japan's MOE announced the third round of recipients in November last year.

In December, Japan's MOE confirmed a €58 million subsidy budget for NatRef installations for FY2019.

It exceeds last year's ¥6.4 billion (€47 million) budgeted amount for FY2018.

About Japan’s natural refrigerant subsidy scheme

Since 2014, subsidies have been a major driver of growth in the number of CO₂ stores in Japan as well as NH₃/CO₂ cold store facilities.

The stated goal of the subsidy is to encourage the “shift to natural refrigerants […] and to widely promote the use of energy-efficient equipment”.

Japan’s Ministry of the Environment says that the subsidy aims to “contribute to driving down the cost of natural refrigerant equipment to achieve cost parity with conventional f-gas equipment, and to accelerate the spread of the technology”.

With the amount of natural refrigerant subsidies now confirmed, the opportunity for domestic and international suppliers of CO2, NH3 and hydrocarbon solutions will again be a hot topic to discuss at ATMOsphere Japan on 12 February 2019.

Yasuhiro Baba, director of the office of fluorocarbons control policy in the Japanese Ministry of the Environment, is scheduled to speak in detail about the subsidy program at the event.