Kyocera to outfit all of its Japan plants with solar

Japanese electronics company Kyocera on Monday said it will outfit all of its Japan plans with solar power by March 2011.

In some respects, Kyocera is eating its own dog food since it is installing its own modules. Once Kyocera installs solar power systems at 6 of its domestic plants it will have all 10 of its manufacturing plants in Japan covered.

Kyocera said it will have 20 sites across the world using solar power.

The combined solar power outfit will be 1.8MW. Kyocera said in a statement:

Among the six plants to be equipped with new systems are the Yasu Plant (Shiga), which is the company's new solar cell manufacturing plant; the Kitami Plant (Hokkaido), which mainly manufactures mobile phone handsets; and the Sendai Plant (Kyushu), which mainly manufactures ceramic components and ceramic knives.

Kyocera has a lot of data and experience with solar installations. One of its solar energy testing facilities has had a system in place since 1984. That solar power system has continued to run for more than 25 years and has provided Kyocera with "unprecedented, long-term field-test data."

This post was originally published on Smartplanet.com