Sharp Solar

Sharp Solar, a subsidiary of Sharp Electronics, is a solar energy products company owned by Sharp Corporation and based in Osaka, Japan.

Sharp Solar
IndustrySolar Electricity
Founded1959
FounderTokuji Hayakawa
Headquarters
Osaka
,
Japan
Key people
Katsuhiko Machida (Representative Director, Chairman, CEO)
Mikio Katayama (Representative Director, President, COO)
ProductsSolar modules (residential, commercial, utility)
OwnerSharp Corporation
Number of employees
59,100 (as of 10/2009)
ParentSharp Electronics
Websitewww.sharp-solar.com

Products

The company produces thin film modules and mono and poly-crystalline silicon solar cells.

Sharp's photovoltaic (PV) modules are used for many applications, from satellites to lighthouses, and industrial applications to residential use.

Sharp Solar manufactures PV modules in many locations, including Llay near Wrexham, Wales, and Memphis, Tennessee.

History

Sharp began researching solar cells in 1959 with mass production first beginning in 1963. Production capacity amounted to 324 MW in 2004.[1][2] In 2010, they were the #1 producer of PV cells, in terms of revenues.[3]

Timeline

1959: Started development of solar cells
1963: Began mass production of solar cells
1963: First to supply ocean buoy with solar power cells
1966: Installed solar on lighthouse
1967: Began development of solar space applications
1976: "Ume" satellite successfully launched with solar cells on board
1980: Released first solar calculator
1981: Began operations at Shinjo Plant (now Katsuragi)
1988: Reached 11.5% cell conversion for amorphous silicon solar cells
1992: Reached 17.1% cell conversion for polycrystalline solar cells
1992: Achieved world's highest cell conversion efficiency of 22%
1994: Commercialization of residential solar power system (grid-connected)
2000: Became global leader in solar cell manufacturing
2001: Obtained UL (U.S.) and TUV (EU) certification for PV modules
2002: Developed the industry's first string power conditioner
2003: Space PV module installed on Satellite Observatory "Free Flyer" (SFU)
2003: Began producing PV modules in the United States
2003: Began producing PV modules in Europe
2005: Developed solar cells that admit light and can be used as building materials for windows
2005: Began mass-producing thin film solar cells
2006: Katsuragi plant expands its annual production capacity to 600 megawatts, the world's highest at that time
2007: Expanded production capacity of PV modules to 200 megawatts in Europe
2008: Became first PV manufacturer in the world to achieve cumulative production of 2 GW
2008: Achieved industry's highest conversion efficiency for a polycrystalline PV module of 14.4%
2009: Launched thin film modules globally
2010: Launched world's highest efficiency Solar PV panel with greater than 32.5% efficiency
2010: Investment made into 2.8 GW annual production capacity

gollark: That is only about three of them, though.
gollark: Generally less.
gollark: Do cloud providers start stuff that much faster than generic VPS ones? All the VPS providers I've used can manage initialisation in a few minutes.
gollark: But it still seems like a big price delta given that, like you said, they have ridiculous economies of scale.
gollark: I have an old tower server which costs maybe £5/month to run, which provides ~4x the CPU/RAM and ~10x the disk I'd get from a cloud provider at similar pricing, plus I could install a spare GPU when I wanted that. This is a very extreme case since I am entirely ignoring my time costs on managing it and don't have as much redundancy as them.(Edit: also terrible internet connectivity, and colocation would be expensive)

See also

References
  1. "Sharp Solar Modules". Archived from the original on 2016-11-16. Retrieved 2020-04-28.
  2. "Sharp Solar celebrates five years as world number one". Archived from the original on 2007-06-26. Retrieved 2007-06-01.
  3. "Solarbuzz Raises Global Photovoltaic 2010 Market Forecast to 15.2 GW" Archived 2012-03-12 at the Wayback Machine, SolarBuzz, 29 June 2010
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