Japan's Prime Minister Taro Aso has announced a ¥15.4-trillion (US$154-billion) stimulus package that includes measures to spur on the country's green-technology industry.

The package, announced on 10 April, allocates ¥1.6 trillion to low-carbon technologies, including plans to equip schools and homes with solar panels to increase solar-energy capacity 20-fold to 280 gigawatts by 2020. Subsidies in the range of ¥250,000 for electric and hybrid cars aim to create sales of 1 million environmentally friendly cars by the same deadline.

Aso is pitching the project — which still needs parliamentary approval — as a bridge to a future in which Japan is less dependent on cars and conventional electronics manufacturing and thrives on environmental technologies.

A supplementary budget including the green stimulus will be submitted to parliament on 27 April.