Kyocera is building multiple solar systems in Japan — a total of 30 MW — for the National Federation of Agricultural Cooperative Associations (Zen-Noh) and Mitsubishi. Kyocera is engineering, supplying, constructing and maintaining the systems to be installed at roughly 80 of Zen-Noh's facilities (livestock barns, distribution centers and parking lots) around the country. Kyocera will supply about 124,000 of its 242W modules. The order is worth about $89 million and comprises the initial phase of the project to be completed in 2013. Zen-Noh and Mitsubishi are planning to build one of the country’s largest scale solar power projects by installing a total of 200 MW of solar power generating systems on farmers’ and Zen-Noh Group’s facilities nationwide by the end of 2015. The two companies have established JAMC Solar Energy Company to operate the solar power project, and will sell the power generated from the installations to the regional utility power companies under Japan’s feed-in tariff program.
In July, Ikea will begin to increase the solar array atop its two-year-old store in Centennial, Colo. Installation of panels on the roof’s remaining space with be completed by Fall. Already the state’s largest single-use rooftop array on a commercial building, the project will become Colorado’s largest rooftop array of any use. The 83,700-sq-foot addition will consist of a 623-kW system, built with 2,492 panels, and will produce 961,000 kWh annually for the store. Including the existing system, the store’s total 1,121-kW solar installation of 4,704 panels soon will generate 1,701,000 kWh yearly. For the development, design and installation of the store’s system, Ikea contracted with REC Solar.
In Vienna, Austria, Upsolar installed 1,600 of its UP-M24OP-T solar modules powered by Tigo Energy on the rooftop at the storage facility owned by Vienna’s historic Opera House, Wiener Staatsoper. The 400 kW project will reduce energy use for the facility, which provides a temperature-controlled environment to preserve historic artifacts. Siblik Elektrik facilitated construction of the system. Tigo provides digital monitoring services at the module level that enable Wiener Staatsoper to track the performance of the system automatically and remotely.
