Toshiba Corp. (6502), the Japanese maker of flash-memory chips, elevators and nuclear reactors, will enter the solar power generation business through projects with combined capacity of 6.5 megawatts.
A 1.5 megawatt plant in Kanagawa prefecture, south of Tokyo, will start running on April 1 and three more stations are planned to be set up by the end of March 2014, the company said in a statement today.
Toshiba has been supplying equipment to thermal, nuclear, geothermal, and solar power plants, according to the statement.
“We will contribute to the expansion of clean energy through power generation projects using our technology,” it said.
Japan introduced an incentive program in July for clean energy following the March 2011 Fukushima nuclear accident. Toshiba said the company will consider entering other clean energy generation businesses such as wind, geothermal and small hydro.