Kyocera Corp. recently completed construction of a new solar cell manufacturing plant in Yasu City, Shiga Prefecture, Japan, increasing the company’s production capacity to meet the growing demand for solar energy products in the global market and contributing to its expanded annual production target of 1 gigawatt (GW) by March 2013. The new facility becomes the largest Kyocera Group manufacturing plant in Japan.

The new plant employs an enhanced manufacturing line that increases productivity by 20% compared with the Yohkaichi Plant, Kyocera’s other solar cell manufacturing facility. The main product to be manufactured at the Yasu Plant is the company’s newly enhanced cell with an average energy conversion efficiency of 16.9%. These cells are used in the company's 215-watt solar module, which is slated for sales to the global market.

“Together with the existing plant at Yohkaichi, the new Yasu Plant will be Kyocera’s core production site for solar cells,” said Tetsuo Kuba, president of Kyocera Corp. “In addition to mass-producing cells with Kyocera’s highest conversion efficiency, the new plant will also undertake R&D activities for next-generation cell technology.”

For more information, visit http://global.kyocera.com/prdct/solar.