The FINANCIAL -- SANYO Electric Co., Ltd. (SANYO) is pleased to announce that it will increase the production capacity for HIT solar cell modules at its Nishikinohama Factory (Kaizuka City, Osaka Prefecture) and at its Shiga Plant (Ohtsu City, Shiga Prefecture), in order to respond the strong demand for solar cell modules in Japan.
The Japanese market is expanding rapidly due to installation subsidies from the national and prefectural governments, as well as the national government’s new surplus electricity purchasing program for solar power.
According to SANYO , the Nishikinohama Factory has a production capacity of 35 MW. However, through recently decided process enhancement (takt time and output improvement), the plant will achieve a capacity increase of 5 MW, bringing its production capacity to 40 MW.
The Shiga Plant now has a production capacity of 100 MW, and has been working to increase that amount by another 100 MW by March 2011. However, in order to meet strong demand in Japan, an additional capacity increase of 50 MW is being carried out through the installation of additional equipment, thereby realizing a total capacity of 250 MW.
SANYO has two HIT solar cell production sites: the Nishikinohama Factory (Kaizuka City, Osaka Prefecture), and Shimane SANYO Electric Co., Ltd. (Unnan City, Shimane Prefecture). The solar cell modules, on the other hand, are produced at the two sites in Japan (Nishikinohama Factory and Shiga Plant), and at two overseas sites (Hungary Factory and Monterrey Factory in Mexico). With the new capacity increases at the two module production sites in Japan, SANYO will be ready to meet the strong demand in the Japanese market.
SANYO plans on almost doubling its HIT® solar cell production capacity from the current level of 340 MW, to 600 MW, by March 2011. Additional HIT® solar cell production equipment is currently being installed in the Nishikinohama Factory and at Shimane SANYO Electric Co., Ltd. SANYO will continue to build a production system that can meet the demand of the world’s three major solar markets - Japan, Europe and North America.
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