Oct 25 2010
Sanyo Electric aspires to achieve a sales figure of 100 billion yen by the year 2015 based on lithium ion batteries that store the electricity produced from solar energy on a large scale basis. According to Seiichiro Sano, President of Sanyo, at a news conference in Kasai, Hyogo Prefecture, their goal was to achieve business growth, and simultaneously contribute to the betterment of the environment.
This conference was held to open the plant that is to produce lithium ion batteries in bulk used in hybrid vehicles. He also mentioned that the company had successfully developed a new version of HIT solar cell panels with superior energy conversion efficiency. The product sales would commence from the year end to next March in Europe.
The plant has been fitted in with a solar power generation system that would decrease CO2 discharges by almost 2480 tons yearly by stockpiling electric power in 310,000 lithium ion batteries, which would be utilized for lighting and other uses. It comes with a system that saves energy by switching off lights when the camera senses no motion or presence in the room. The plant ready in July, would commence producing 1 million units on a monthly basis by next March with the expected increase in capacity to reach 10 million units by 2015.
The Panasonic group and Sanyo have the lion’s share of the global market for lithium-ion battery shipments but the Chinese and the South Korean manufacturers with governmental support, are also catching up fast. Production structures are being constructed by battery makers to ensure that they would be able to handle the growing requirement for lithium-ion batteries, used in both electric and hybrid vehicles.