Solar Frontier banks on higher Japanese sales

Share

Total Japanese sales are expected to increase to 80 to 90% of the company’s total sales in 2013, Atsuhiko Hirano, Director SVP International Business Saudi Arabia Project Mega Solar Business (Japan) told pv magazine at this year's PV Expo Tokyo. Last year, in comparison, sales in Japan accounted for 60% of the company’s total.

Regarding production, the Japanese solar market boom is said to have contributed significantly to Solar Frontier’s high utilization rates of between 600 and 700 MW at its 900 MW Kunitomi plant in Myazaki. Hirano said, however, that the company is not planning to ramp up capacity in the short-term.

In addition to the utility-scale photovoltaic project market, Solar Frontier is also increasingly looking to the Japanese rooftop market, due to its sustainability, continued Hirano. He said this year, expectations are that residential sales will account for 20% of Solar Frontier’s total Japanese market sales. The main partners for new business are housing companies.

In the commercial sector, Solar Frontier is looking to strengthen its position as an Independent Power producer (IPP). Several such projects are said to be in the pipeline, said Hirano.

In related news, parent company Showa Shell Sekiyu, and Ube Industries Ltd have announced their intentions to build a 21 MW photovoltaic plant in western Japan, according to Bloomberg. It is scheduled to be operational by next July, and Solar Frontier is expected to supply the necessary CIS thin film modules.

Translated by Becky Beetz.

Popular content

This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: editors@pv-magazine.com.

Share

Related content

Elsewhere on pv magazine...

Leave a Reply

Please be mindful of our community standards.

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

By submitting this form you agree to pv magazine using your data for the purposes of publishing your comment.

Your personal data will only be disclosed or otherwise transmitted to third parties for the purposes of spam filtering or if this is necessary for technical maintenance of the website. Any other transfer to third parties will not take place unless this is justified on the basis of applicable data protection regulations or if pv magazine is legally obliged to do so.

You may revoke this consent at any time with effect for the future, in which case your personal data will be deleted immediately. Otherwise, your data will be deleted if pv magazine has processed your request or the purpose of data storage is fulfilled.

Further information on data privacy can be found in our Data Protection Policy.