Panasonic Reportedly Making Storage Batteries for Homes

It seems that Panasonic is bent on creating a working energy storage battery meant to complement the power generation capabilities of solar batteries. The company will achieve this thanks to the technological know-how recently gained from the acquisition of Sanyo. The battery will supposedly enable Japanese and other homes to power their electronics for an entire week.

"We'll be the first to bring to the market a storage battery for home use, which can store sufficient electricity for about one week of use," said Fumio Otsubo, president of Panasonic, in a recent interview with The Yomiuri Shimbun.

After the acquisition of the majority stake in Sanyo, Panasonic became the second largest electronics Japanese company. The corporation seems to want its first big project to have an equally big impact, although Otsubo did admit to the fact that certain loose ends would have to be tied up before the actual development could really ramp up. The actual issues Panasonic and Sanyo have to deal with are reorganizing their growth strategies and carrying out mid-term plans while preserving Sanyo's brands.

Still, even with these issues, Panasonic's president seems optimistic about the battery development plans. The actual product will be aimed at providing energy storage capabilities to homes that use solar batteries. Such solar batteries can certainly generate power, but they cannot store electricity. Panasonic and Sanyo have reportedly already test-manufactured a storage battery for home use.

"We're positioned closest [among firms] to realizing CO2 emission-free daily life," Otsubo stated. "As we now have such power-generating products as solar power and fuel cells, there'll be an opportunity to create a bigger business... In the area of automobile cells, we can deal with all kinds of eco-friendly cars such as hybrid cars or electric vehicles."

The growth strategies and overlapping product lines of Sanyo and Panasonic are set to be announced on January 8. In addition, the company's settlement of accounts, which will be revealed in May, will present ways of dealing with the overlapping lines of business.

"We'll come up with products sought by middle-income people in such emerging countries as China and India, which haven't been hit by deflationary pressure... We hope to introduce Sanyo products to Panasonic's sales channels," he added.

It is still unclear when the cell will become available, but the business plan of the two companies seems to hint at a possible availability of the batteries during fiscal year 2011 (which starts on April 1, 2010 in Japan).