Japanese electronics company, Panasonic Corporation has announced that it will look to shut down the production capacity for solar products at its facilities in Malaysia and Japan by the end of the financial year 2022. The company currently manufactures solar wafers, cells, and modules at its facility in Malaysia. It will look to liquidate its subsidiary, Panasonic Solar Energy Malaysia, and lay off its employees by March 2022. Further, Panasonic will also close operations at its Shimane Facility in Japan by the end of the financial year 2022. The company will, however, continue the manufacturing of storage batteries, inverters, and other products. In Japan, rather than laying off employees, the company will shift those involved in solar cell production to other growing business areas within the facility.
Along with the current announcement, Panasonic will also scale down the research and development activities at its Nishikinohama facility in Kaizuka City, Osaka, Japan, and shift its employees to other areas. It has assured premium severance payment and outplacement assistance to the impacted employees.
While reporting its financial results in June 2020, the company had announced the closing of solar technology production its Buffalo factory in the United States with plans to formalise the exit by September 2020.
In February 2020, Panasonic reported that it had achieved the world’s highest energy conversion efficiency of 16.09 per cent for its perovskite solar module which uses a lightweight technology using a glass substrate and large-area coating method based on inkjet printing.
