Japan’s ITOCHU Corporation (ITOCHU) and Singapore’s Mapletree Investment jointly developed two large-scale multi-tenant logistics centers respectively in Noda, Chiba Prefecture and in Sakai City, Osaka. The rooftops were both rented to Orix to install solar panels, and the 2.75MW PV systems atop I MISSIONS PARK Sakai’s rooftop is Japan’s largest of-its-kind.

ITOCHU and Mapletree Investment held the opening ceremonies for I MISSIONS PARK Noda and I MISSIONS PARK Sakai on August 1, while both properties started commercial operations earlier this year.

I MISSIONS PARK Sakai is a low-carbon building as it integrated various of eco-friendly solutions such as green parking lots and LED lighting systems. The building owner rents the rooftop to Orix for installing 10,368 solar panels made by Kyocera. The rooftop PV system, which utilized power conditioning systems supplied by Hitachi, connected to the grid on June 29 with an expected annual electricity generation of approximately 3,000,000kWh, enough for powering 860 average households.

The PV system atop I MISSIONS PARK Sakai is Japan’s largest rooftop PV project built on a rooftop rent from the building owner.

Orix also rents rooftop from I MISSIONS PARK Noda and installed 5,886 solar panels, totaling 1.56MW. The PV system atop I MISSIONS PARK Noda was put online on March 

Orix has experiences in developing 375 rooftop PV projects with over 100MW of installation capacity across Japan, of which 171 projects (85MW) have started operation. Orix will continue promoting the rooftop rental business model to owners of logistics centers, retails and factories, helping enhance extra values through installing rooftop PV systems.

(Photo Credit: Orix)