Shipping line to use CIS solar technology
Solar Frontier has supplied its CIS solar panels to Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha (K Line), one of Japan's largest shipping companies, in order to power one of its newest environmentally friendly transport ship.
K Line's new vessel, a car-carrier named Drive Green Highway, integrates energy-efficient technologies and design improvements to reduce its impact on the environment. It is the first of eight similar vessels that will be built under K Line's Drive Green Project and was launched at a recent ceremony in Nagasu Port in the southern city of Kumamoto.
Drive Green Highway has one of largest solar energy systems on any ship in the world, according to Solar Frontier, which supplied more than 900 of its CIS solar panels for installation on the ship's top deck. With 150kW of capacity, the system powers all of the vessel's LED lighting on the vehicle decks.
"K Line is demonstrating how solar energy can improve the energy efficiency and reduce the ecological impact of the shipping industry," said Atsuhiko Hirano, CEO of Solar Frontier. "This is one example of the greater role that solar energy has to play in our future, supporting an ever broader range of technologies in a wider range of industries."
The ship is 200m long, 37.5m wide and carries up to 7,500 passenger vehicles. It will emit 25 percent less CO2, 50 percent less nitrogen-oxide and 90 percent less sulphur-oxide per vehicle transported, according to the company.
