Panasonic proudly displays its factory powered by 100% renewable energy (solar and hydrogen), manufacturing unit is the only one of its kind in the world

Panasonic factory becomes a world reference in sustainability by using energy from 100% renewable sources 

The production unit of Panasonic, located in Kusatsu, Shiga Prefecture, Japan, is the only factory of its kind that uses 100% renewable energy. The company gave details of its “green factory” which has become a world reference. 

The manufacturing unit of Panasonic was created in 1969 to produce household appliances such as refrigerators and washing machines. It is a model of environmentally friendly technology in the manufacturing industry, and now it has been updated with the latest advances in the field. sustainability process. 

A factory powered by renewable energy, is balanced by a system that uses artificial intelligence and works with a mixture of solar energy and hydrogen as a source of supply. The experimental installation was put into operation at the unit in April. 

The system has a hydrogen tank, a network of product cells, and a system with solar panels and Tesla batteries. for renewable energy storage. 

All of the plant's equipment is powered by hydrogen cells for about 80% of its required electricity, while two solar panels provide the other 20%. The operation has an annual hydrogen consumption requirement of 120 tons.

During the night, the energy produced by the cells of hydrogen supplies electricity to the batteries, which are used at all times. During the day, the Energy Management System (EMS), which is powered by artificial intelligence, decides how much renewable energy the plant should consume, determining whether it should draw power from solar panels or batteries. This decision is taken in order to minimize the amount of energy that must be purchased from the external grid.

This is the first factory of its kind to use 100% renewable energy, says Hiroshi Kinoshita of Panasonic's Intelligent Energy Systems Division 

Panasonic believes it will need to reduce prices to the order of 20 yen (75 cents in current currency) per cubic meter of hydrogen to put the system on par with the public power grid. to continue like this 

Iwatani, a local supplier, recently launched a research facility in Osaka with the intention of producing “green hydrogen” without the use of any fossil fuel, which is another significant step in the right direction.

Panasonic predicts that there will be an increase in demand for new factories using renewable energy as a result of Japan's goal of achieving carbon neutrality by the year 2050. Norihiko Kawamura of the Systems Division delivers an important message. According to him, if we want to have 100% of our factories with renewable energy in 2030, we need to start something like this now, not in 2030″.