A few days after China announced its solar stimulus plans, Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso told reporters that he wants to integrate an economic stimulus plan that would favor solar development. Meanwhile, a panel set up by Japan's ruling party is hoping to bolster a scheme where utilities would buy electricity generated by solar panels installed on individual homes and office buildings. The panel also wants to install solar power generators at roughly 37,000 public schools within the next three years.

Incidentally, we heard last week that Toshiba and Sharp were in talks to join forces on their solar businesses. According to representatives from Sharp, the company wants to further enhance its solar business, and Toshiba is looking for a panel supplier. Sharp is one of the companies under consideration. Sharp's solar cell revenue is expected to reach US$1.7 billion this fiscal year, and Toshiba is looking to deliver annual sales of about US$2 billion by 2016 for its distributed generation systems.

Also on the Japanese solar front, oil refiner, Showa Shell Sekiyu KK is now looking to pick up some land to build its third solar panel factory. Representatives from Showa indicated that the company was in talks to buy an old Hitachi plasma television panel plant in southern Japan. Showa has already invested about US$202 million in its first two factories, which now have a combined production capacity of 80 megawatts a year. The next factory is expected to have a capacity of 1,000 megawatts.

You can learn more about Japanese solar investments in this recent article by Green Chip International editor Sam Hopkins, here:

http://www.greenchipstocks.com/articles/japanese-solar-power-investments/446 

Jeff