Tochigi: Thin solar sheets experiment
Extremely thin solar panels which are less than 1mm were placed on the roof of the Japan Rail’s Tsuruda Station in Utsunomiya city, Tochigi prefecture. JR East Japan is conducting the experiment.
This very thin solar sheet power generator was developed by a maker in Sendai city, its thickness is less than 1mm and weighs one tenth of the conventional solar panels. Also, it’s much easier and takes less time to install.
At Tsuruda Station roof, they installed about 2 square meters of the solar sheets, which generate roughly 30watt-hour per hour on a sunny day. The generated power is stored in the rechargeable batteries to be used for the lighting at night at the station. The actual amount of power generated is shown at the monitor near the ticketing area.
According to the assistant director of the JR East Japan Frontier Service Research Center, Mr. Tetsuo Ishizuka, while inspecting its durability towards all weather, they aim to make it efficient enough for practical uses in many JR stations in the near future. The experiment ends February 2013.
