Kyocera Corporation has installed more than 1,200 solar power generating systems at public schools in Japan and has been ranked Kyocera as the No.1 supplier of solar power system in Japanese market.

With the government’s “School New Deal” initiative that aims to broadly enrich the nation’s educational facilities, the use of solar power at schools in Japan has risen up in recent years.

The School New Deal initiative advocates for the fundamental reform of facilities to promote schools, as a part of the economic crisis countermeasures set forth in 2009, to have the appropriate educational environment for the 21st Century.

The initial plans are to pursue higher earthquake-resistant building standards and to utilize solar power generation under the broader concepts of improved environmental impact and enhanced information & communications technology (ICT).

In April 2009, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology set a target to increase the number of public elementary, middle and high schools with solar power installations to 12,000. In the market for school installations in Japan, Kyocera holds the No.1 share with over 40 percent. Kyocera believes that this hike is a direct result of the company’s reputation as they supply highly reliable products and its ability to provide engineering services on a case-by-case basis for rapid implementation.

Use of solar power at schools is part of the growth in Japan’s public- and industrial-use solar power market, that has increased roughly by 3.6-times* in the five-year period from FY2005 to FY2010.

Kyocera will continue to strive for the further implementation of clean energy solutions at schools by using the company’s strengths which have been developed over its 35-year history in the solar industry.