Photovoltaic news and pv jobs

Toshiba to continue to sell SunPower modules in Japan

Since 2010, Toshiba has sold 150 MW of SunPower modules to the Japanese residential market. In an agreement announced today the partnership will continue until 2018.

SunPower will continue to supply the Japanese residential market, through an extended agreement with Toshiba.

With Japan’s booming photovoltaic market, local distribution can be an important asset for a foreign photovoltaic manufacturer. SunPower has an extended an relationship with Toshiba that delivers this advantage, with the company set to provide more than 100 MW p.a. of its solar panels exclusively to Toshiba. 

In September, SunPower announced its intention to extend the partnership. Today's announcement reveals how long the deal has been extended to and the expected demand it will generate for the California based manufacturer. 

"Our strong partnership with Toshiba has been instrumental in our rapid growth in the Japanese residential market," said Tom Werner, SunPower’s president and CEO. "Extending our partnership through 2018 provides further certainty in a region that values our high efficiency, high reliability, guaranteed performance solar panels."

While the Japanese residential photovoltaic market has remained strong in recent years, the most rapidly growing market segment has been the utility scale applications. Under the revamped FITs, utility scale photovoltaic power plants can generate very attractive rates of return, with some forecasting up to 1.8 GW of installed capacity in 2012. The revamped FITs came into effect on July 1.