InfraStructures - March 2011 - Kyocera Installs Solar Power at More Than 1200 Japanese Schools

Kyocera Installs Solar Power at More Than 1200 Japanese Schools

Kyocera Corporation recently announced that it has installed more than 1200 solar power generating systems at public schools in Japan – ranking Kyocera as the No.1 supplier in this segment of the Japanese market. The use of solar power at schools in Japan has grown exponentially in recent years with the government's “School New Deal” initiative, which aims to broadly enrich the nation's educational facilities.
As part of the economic crisis countermeasures set forth in 2009, the School New Deal initiative advocates for the fundamental reform of facilities to promote schools that have the appropriate educational environment for the 21st Century. Specifically, the initiative plans to promptly pursue higher earthquake-resistant building standards and to utilize solar power generation under the broader concepts of improved environmental impact and enhanced information & communications technology (ICT).

In April 2009, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology set a target of increasing the number of public elementary, middle and high schools with solar power installations to 12,000.

Use of solar power at schools is part of the larger trend of growth in Japan's public- and industrial-use solar power market, which has expanded by roughly 3.6-times* in the 5-year period from FY2005 to FY2010. As solar power installations in this market segment typically require a diverse range of systems to optimize performance depending on the specific site, Kyocera's business model in Japan is able to apply its design and installation technologies which have been cultivated through the company's many years of experience in the solar industry.

Kyocera will continue to strive for the further implementation of clean energy solutions at schools by using the company's strengths which have been developed over its 35-year history in the solar industry.

* Based on data from the Japan Photovoltaic Energy Association (JPEA)

Source: Kyocera Corporation