Much has changed over the five years since that disaster triggered the world’s worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl, just 10km from the ruins of Tomioka Station and 225km north of the bustling streets of Tokyo. But when it comes to renewables development, so much more could still be done.

Certainly, the disaster pushed the government to completely rethink its energy policies.

Before the earthquake, nuclear power accounted for 30% of the country’s energy mix. Within a year of the disaster, Japan’s entire nuclear fleet was shut down for safety checks, in the face of widespread public opposition to atomic energy. At press time, just two reactors — at Kyushu Electric Power’s plant in Satsumasendai, Kagoshima prefecture — were operational (a district court in Otsu, Shiga prefecture, this week ordered Kansai Electric Power to shut down its recently restarted Takahama No. 3 reactor).

Yet the government is determined to switch back on at least a portion of Japan's idled nuclear capacity, and with good reason.

Beyond providing a baseload power source, many of the plants throughout the archipelago remain usable; by laying dormant, they’re simply bleeding money. Which is to say nothing of the amount of oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) the government has had to import since the nuclear shutdown, with spending spiking nearly 60% through late 2014 to $270bn, according to the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry (METI).

Yet all of this makes the government’s long-term energy targets somewhat puzzling.

Renewables are set to account for 22-24% of the national mix by 2030. With nuclear at 20-22%, LNG at 27% and coal at 26%, the targets are in line with the government’s desire to achieve balance in its future energy supply.

From the perspective of energy security, it remains unclear why LNG will figure so prominently in the future mix, given that Tokyo has said repeatedly that it wishes to reduce its exposure to unstable global energy markets. Electricity prices have also risen in recent years, as LNG, oil and coal imports have accounted for roughly 85% of the country’s energy supply since the Fukushima disaster, while the yen has been relatively weak.

Given the international push to decarbonise in the wake of the Paris climate talks, it’s also not clear why coal will remain a priority. In fact, Japan plans to build more than 30GW of new coal capacity in the coming years, according to Carbon Brief. For whatever reason, the government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe — which repeatedly delayed setting its long-term energy goals in the months prior to COP21 — appears unwilling to end its addiction to fossil fuels.

Yet it’s not all doom and gloom, by any measure. In fact, there is much to celebrate. Speaking at the World Smart Energy Week (WSEW) conference in Tokyo last week, METI official Toshimitsu Fujiki noted that renewables now account for 12.2% of Japan’s energy mix, from less than 1% before the Fukushima disaster.

Solar development has exploded since the meltdown, with cumulative capacity likely in the 35GW range at present. While annual utility-scale installations are expected to peak this year, Japan will remain a gigawatt-scale solar market for years to come.

However, the development of other renewables, particularly wind, remains disappointing. The country installed just 244MW of wind in 2015, bringing cumulative capacity to a little more than 3GW. And this poor performance is at least partly due to weak support at the policy level.

Under the government’s current energy targets, as little as 10GW of wind capacity could be installed by 2030 — far below the 36GW that the Japan Wind Power Association (JWPA) believes could be built over the same time period. And despite years of talk, the Ministry of Environment (MoE) has still not delivered on its promise to streamline the costly environmental impact assessment (EIA) process — a time-consuming drag on the development of wind projects.

Offshore wind, particularly floating wind, arguably holds the most promise for future industrial-scale development.

Momentum has been steadily building for years, with Ideol already partnering with Hitachi Zosen to push the French company’s semi-submersible, "damping pool" floating foundations in the country. More recently, the UK Carbon Trust has teamed up with the authorities in Nagasaki prefecture to build a floating wind and tidal energy test centre in the Goto Islands.

But the consortium behind the Fukushima Forward pilot project is struggling to rein in costs to a level that would commercialise the concepts it has been testing. The country also still lacks the vessels, port infrastructure and human resources needed to support sustained build-out.

And as with onshore, development is still moving more slowly than many in the industry would hope. Speaking on condition of anonymity on the sidelines of WSEW last week, an official from a Western offshore wind manufacturer succinctly captured the sense of frustration with the slow development of Japanese wind: “It’s step by step… which is annoying for companies that are trying to sell here.”

What’s clear is that the Abe government is simply not showing the level of enthusiasm for future renewables development that many in the industry have demanded. But given the immense changes that have been implemented since the Fukushima disaster, there is still reason for optimism.

In Dispatches, Recharge journalists offer a personal insight into the issues shaping the development of renewable energy around the world