Sanyo Electric Co Ltd announced it will set up a "solar bicycle parking lot" at the Tokushima Prefectural Government Office in Japan to test its solar cells and rechargeable batteries targeting March 2009.
Hybrid electric bicycles will be charged using Sanyo's HIT (heterojunction with intrinsic thin layer) solar panels and Li-ion battery unit installed in part of the existing bicycle parking lot at the government office. By combining the solar panels and the secondary battery unit, it is possible to charge bicycles without using a commercial power supply even at night or on rainy days.
The Li-ion battery unit has an AC outlet and can be used as a power supply in the case of an emergency.
Sanyo will install three 210W HIT solar panels and a Li-ion battery unit to generate about 690kWh per year. In the verification test, three units of Sanyo's "eneloop bike" will be used for duty trips as official vehicles of the government office.
Sanyo has its Li-ion secondary battery manufacturing cite in Tokushima Prefecture and participates in the "Tokushima Prefecture Next-generation Energy Usage Promotion Council," an industry-government-academia project led by the prefectural government. This project is aimed at vitalizing local industries by using Sanyo's Li-ion secondary batteries.
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