Kyocera Corporation (President: Tetsuo Kuba) today announced that 960-kilowatts (kW) of its solar modules (roughly 4,300 units) have been installed on the roof of the recently opened AEON Itami-Koya shopping center (operated by AEON Retail Co., Ltd.) in Itami City, Hyogo Prefecture, Japan. The total solar power generating system is 1.16-megawatts (MW), of which 960kW are Kyocera modules, making it one of the largest systems on a commercial building in Japan. Kyocera’s modules alone provide the equivalent amount of electricity for about 210 typical homes* (990,000kWh) and will off-set roughly 310-tons of CO2 per year.
Kyocera modules are already being used in a large number of commercial & industrial installations in Japan. In particular, 126 AEON shopping centers around the country have installed a total of over 10MW of the company’s modules — making up roughly 80% of the modules used at all of their solar-power-equipped locations.
The AEON shopping center in Itami City is a large-scale facility containing 159 businesses. Aside from having one of the largest solar power generating systems for a commercial facility, the “Eco-Mall” also employs other environmental and energy conserving features such as growing plants on the outer walls, and a parking lot surrounded by grass.
