Kyocera Corp. has announced it will begin large-scale production at its new solar cell manufacturing plant in Yasu City, Shiga Prefecture, Japan.
The new factory was completed in March this year and has already completed the first production testing line, the plant is the largest production facility of the company, and will produce multicrystalline silicon solar cells.
The new Yasu plant has a improved production line, and will produce solar cells with conversion efficiency of 16.9% - one of the highest in the world.
Together with the existing factory Yohkaichi Shiga (Japan), the new plant will help meet Kyocera's plan, annual production of 1GW of solar cells by March 2013.
Residential solar market in Japan has grown due to the reintroduction last year, of government grants and doubling the purchase price for the excess solar power generated.
In 1982, Kyocera launched its first mass production of multicrystalline solar cells worldwide using the casting method. Since then, Kyocera increased the conversion efficiency by improving its technology.
Today, multicrystalline silicon solar cells are widely used worldwide because of its superior characteristics such as production price, energy efficiency and conversion.
