New Business Model for Residential Solar Wins Eco-Products Award

Copyright Ichijo Co.

Ichijo Co., a Japanese homebuilder of made-to-order wooden residential housing, announced on November 28, 2012, that its business model, the "Yume-Hatsuden (Dream Generation in Japanese) System" for home solar generation, won a Minister's Award in the 9th Eco-Products Awards. Launched in 2004, the Awards honor outstanding products and services that contribute to reductions in human impacts on the environment. In the 9th Awards, four Ministers' Awards in the Eco-Products category and three in the Eco-Service category were presented.

The Yume-Hatsuden System provides a "Power Generation Payment" plan based on the return the system provides. In this scheme, the company covers full installation costs for photovoltaic equipment when building a new house, reaping a return on the investment by selling all of the generated electricity and allowing the customer to pay for the installation in installments using the return. The system of installing a photovoltaic facility without initial costs to the homeowner was praised highly for its contribution to the widespread deployment of solar power and increased public recognition.

The Dream Generation System business model also won the Good Design Prize at the 2011 Good Design Awards. The company aims to eventually develop and popularize "life cycle carbon minus" homes, homes that generate electricity from renewable sources such as solar in an amount that more than offsets the CO2 emitted during their entire lifecycle, from construction through demolition.

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