Toshiba announces construction of 100MW of PV projects on Japanese coastline

The Toshiba Corporation has announced that it will commence the construction of PV plants totaling 100MW in Minami Soma on the battered northeastern coastline where a tsunami and an earthquake caused the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl a year ago.

Toshiba’s PV plants will constitute the biggest PV project in Japan, with an investment of ¥30 billion (US$379.6 million) and overtaking Kyocera’s 70MW solar power plant. Toshiba’s plans have been published just a week after very generous feed-in tariffs were announced by the Japanese government. Minami Soma lies only 25km north of Fukushima and the town’s inhabitants were forced to flee their homes when the government declared parts of Minami Soma a “no-go zone” after the nuclear disaster.