About Panasonic > Environmental Activities > Products > Energy-creating Products
Main Contents begins from here.
About Panasonic
Energy-creating Products
Approach to energy creation
We actively develop our energy creation business to maximize the size of contribution in reducing CO2 emissions. By delivering photovoltaic power generation systems and household fuel cell cogeneration systems as means to create necessary electricity with few CO2 emissions, we reduce CO2 emissions in society.
The size of contribution in reducing CO2 emissions through energy-creating products that we achieved was 1.9 million tons in fiscal 2011. Approximately 99% of this was driven by our photovoltaic power products in Japan, Europe, and North America.
We will continue to make progress toward achieving our targets which are the size of contribution in reducing CO2 emissions through energy-creating products of 3 million tons in fiscal 2012 and 3.3 million tons in fiscal 2013.
- *1 The graph does not include data for China and the Asia/Oceania region (except India) since the amount of CO2 emissions reduced falls below zero in the regions due to a decrease in sales quantities. Also, it does not include data for India and Latin America, because Panasonic does not sell these products in those regions.
Photovoltaic power generation system
Photovoltaic power is generated by transforming solar light energy into electricity by semiconductors. The amount of power generation depends on season, weather, and time, but unlike thermal power generation in which fossil fuels are burned to generate electricity, no CO2, exhaust gas or ash is emitted during photovoltaic power generation.
Panasonic Group’s HIT®*2 solar panels provide high-power generation efficiency and output per unit area and are lightweight and compact, allowing sufficient power generation even with narrow roofs. This lead to the contract with British Gas in February 2011 to offer our solar panels to their customers. In March 2011, we launched a residential solar power system, HIT230® Series, which is a line of household solar panels that has low energy-generation loss and current resistance, and boasts the world’s highest energy conversion efficiency rate*3 at 17.9%.
- *2 HIT® is a registered trademark and stands for “Heterojunction with Intrinsic Thin-Layer.”
- *3 Based on a production household model. As of January 2011 (surveyed by Panasonic).
HIT230® series residential solar power system
Fuel cell cogeneration system
Fuel cell cogeneration systems provide high-power energy efficiency and conservation by generating electricity through an electrochemical reaction between oxygen in the atmosphere and hydrogen extracted from city gas, and can heat water with the heat generated from the reaction at the same time.
In May 2009, we launched our household fuel cell cogeneration system named ENE-FARM in partnership with a domestic gas company to lead the world in bringing fuel cell cogeneration technology into the home for residential use. By January 2011, we shipped a total of approximately 5,000 units. As of April 2011, we have reached a power generating efficiency rate of 40% (LHV*4), the highest*5 in the world, and have further simplified our system, as well as reduced the size of key components. As a result, we have begun selling an improved model that is also better priced and requires the least*5 installation space in the industry.
- *4 Lower Heating Value: The value determined by subtracting latent heat of the water vapor from the amount of heat generated when fuel gas is fully combusted.
- *5 Based on a household fuel cell cogeneration system. As of February 9, 2011 (surveyed by Panasonic).
Household fuel cell cogeneration system
Banner area begins from here.
Topics
Sub Menu begins from here.
About Panasonic > Environmental Activities > Products > Energy-creating Products
