Orix, Kyudenko power up 7.8-MW solar park in Japan

Dec 16, 2014 - Japanese financial services conglomerate Orix Corp (TYO:8591) and engineering services provider Kyudenko Corp (TYO:1959) Thursday said their 7.79-MW solar park in Kagoshima prefecture has commenced operations.

The facility is being operated by K Clean Energy, in which Orix owns a 70% stake and Kyudenko holds the remaining 30%. The project company also has an 8.2-MW solar park at the site of the former Makurazaki airport in Japan's Kagoshima prefecture, Kyushu island.

The photovoltaic (PV) plant, located in Kagoshima's city of Kanoya, has 31,780 of PV panels, manufactured by Germany-based Hanwha Q Cells. They are expected to generate about 8.2 GWh of electricity annually, enough to power 2,280 local households, the developers estimate.

Market analytics firm Solarbuzz expects to see 2014 PV demand on the Japanese market surge by 46% in annual terms. Through the end of the third quarter, project pipelines exceeded 56,000 MW, it said in its Asia Pacific Major PV Markets Quarterly report published on Monday.

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