Panasonic Suspending Operations At One Of Its Solar PV Cell Plants Thanks To Slowing Demand

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Operations at one of Panasonic Corporation’s solar photovoltaic cell production facilities will be suspended for roughly half of 2016 owing to slowing demand, according to recent reports.

The production suspension at the solar cell plant will reportedly last from the end of February until the end of October, according to company reps quoted by the Japanese news agency Kyodo.

Panasonic-solar-panel

The facility in question — the Nishikinohama photovoltaic (PV) cell factory in Kaizuka, in Osaka Prefecture — produces solar cells that are used to create residential solar PV panels. As demand for residential solar PV systems has been falling in Japan as of late, partly owing to diminishing feed-in-tariff (FiT) rates, the decision by Panasonic isn’t unexpected.

The company will reportedly be temporarily dismissing the workers at the facility in question. Panasonic’s two solar PV cell fabrication facilities in western Japan will reportedly remain operational as is, as will the company’s facility in Malaysia.

The Nishikinohama facility currently accounts for roughly 30% of the combined annual capacity of 900,000 kilowatts (kW) of solar PV cells produced at the company’s 4 facilities mentioned above.

For more information on the solar energy industry in Japan, see:


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James Ayre

James Ayre's background is predominantly in geopolitics and history, but he has an obsessive interest in pretty much everything. After an early life spent in the Imperial Free City of Dortmund, James followed the river Ruhr to Cofbuokheim, where he attended the University of Astnide. And where he also briefly considered entering the coal mining business. He currently writes for a living, on a broad variety of subjects, ranging from science, to politics, to military history, to renewable energy.

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