Showa Shell Sekiyu and Solar Frontier announced today that they will cooperate in a new solar power generation project to be installed on top of the worlds largest CIS thin-film solar module production facility.
Construction of the 2-megawatt (MW) power plant is scheduled to be finished within this year. Once completed, there will be 7.3MW of solar power capacity installed or planned for Kunitomi town, equivalent to approximately 30% of the towns residential power needs. This will be Showa Shell Sekiyus second commercial solar power plant following the Niigata Yukigunigata Megasolar power plant in Niigata Prefecture.
The new project will add to an existing 2MW power plant of Solar Frontier modules on building 2 that supplies power directly to the Kunitomi plant. The power generated by the new plants Solar Frontier CIS thin-film solar modules on building 3 will be sold to Kyushu Electric Power Company. Solar Frontier, which owns the Kunitomi Plant, will lease the rooftop to Showa Shell Sekiyu.
Solar Frontiers flagship Kunitomi Plant commenced commercial production of CIS thin-film solar modules in February 2011, and all lines at the plant were operational by July of that year. The plant has a 900MW annual production capacity and is Japans largest solar module production plant as well as the worlds largest plant producing CIS thin-film solar modules.
Currently, the CIS thin-film solar modules produced at Kunitomi have a conversion efficiency that exceeds 13%, and the amount of power generated (kWh) per installed capacity (kW) exceeds that of other solar modules. Showa Shell Sekiyu and Solar Frontier intend to contribute even further to the expansion of Japans energy industry and local production and consumption using environmentally-friendly CIS thin-film solar modules made in Japan.
