Japan

Taisei Corp. has installed second-life solar panels at Fukoka Airport’s new office buildings in Japan to test their performance for temporary power production.

Sharp’s new IEC61215- and IEC61730-certified solar panel offers a power conversion efficiency of 22.07% and a bifaciality of more than 80%. The operating temperature coefficient is -0.30% per C and its power tolerance is 5%.

Kaneka’s two-terminal tandem perovskite solar cell has achieved the highest efficiency ever recorded for such a device based on an industrial Czochralski (CZ) silicon wafer. It has an open-circuit voltage of 1.929 V, a short-circuit current density of 19.5 mA cm−2, and a fill factor of 77.55%.

Japanese policymakers are now looking at rooftop solar panels as land is scarce in the country and agrivoltaics, building-integrated PV (BIPV), and floating solar are still in their infancy, reports Mark Hutchins.

Kaneka said the cells will be utilized in the roof glass of Toyota’s Prius PHEV electric car. It plans to begin full-scale delivery of in-vehicle PV products this year.

The Tokyo Metropolitan Government claims that groups can achieve price reductions of up to 20% on purchases of solar modules and batteries.

Nippon Sheet Glass (NSG), Japan’s largest glassmaker, plans to show photovoltaic windows developed by its US unit, Ubiquitous Energy, at a train station in Japan. The windows feature a transparent photovoltaic coating with an invisible element of power generation, capable of absorbing non-visible wavelengths.

Japan’s Ricoh has designed a micro hydropower system for sewage plants that could potentially be used in combination with ground-mounted solar or floating PV. The system features a sustainable water turbine that the company designed with micro-hydroelectricity specialist Seabell Incorporated and the Kanazawa Institute of Technology.

Mitani Sangyo, a Japanese industrial conglomerate, says that its new PV carport design is particularly suitable for snowy areas, as it offers snow load resistance of 150 cm.

German module maker Luxor Solar and Japan’s AirWater are selling vertical PV systems for parking areas that can reportedly provide the same energy yield as conventional PV carports, but with less space. The system features 460 W heterojunction solar panels, power optimizers, and vertical racks.