No final decision on whether Honda plans to enter the solar business

As Japanese car manufacturer Honda puts its CIGS thin-film prototype modules on the roofs of several Honda facilities for testing purposes, it is thinking about entering the market.     

© Honda On its way to commercializing CIGS modules, Honda Engineering installed a system on its Hosoe Outboard Engine Plant in Shizuoka prefecture, Japan, in spring 2002.

According to Shigeki Endo of Honda Motors Co. Ltd. in Japan, the CIGS module prototypes have a maximum output of 112 W at dimensions of 1,367 × 802 × 46 mm. The company now is concentrating on improving module efficiencies in the production process.

Honda so far has not decided whether it will commercialize its solar thin-film product, says Fabian Ottmann, spokesperson at Honda R&D Europe GmbH in Offenbach, Germany. He adds that the board has approved an undisclosed amount of money for R&D and feasibility studies for its CIGS project in 2004. Currently, the company operates a 2.8 MW production line at Honda Engineering Co. Ltd.'s research facilities in Tochigi prefecture, where production machinery for all kinds of Honda factories is developed. 

One of Honda's PV test systems was installed in Torrance, California to power a fuel cell producing hydrogen for a refueling station (see PI 11/2003, p. 20). In his year-end address in April 2003, Honda's president Takeo Fukui underscored that the development of »solar products has been one of Honda's key initiatives toward an energy-recycling society, [where] highly efficient solar modules generate electricity, electricity generates hydrogen from water, and hydrogen is used for fuel-cell vehicles that emit only water.«

Karsten Albers
© PHOTON International, March 2004