Oct 26, 2011

Panasonic Donates First "Life Innovation Container" to Africa

Panasonic donated a unit of Life Innovation Container (LIC) to the Millennium Promise Alliance Inc.(MP). It is the first donation of LIC to Africa and aims to contribute towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) through our corporate citizenship activities. This is to be used by the people living without electricity in Mbola village, which is located in the heart of Tanzania, in cooperation with the Millennium Villages Project operated by several organizations including the MP.

Tape-Cutting at the Handing-over Ceremony

LIC is a stand-alone power system from Panasonic's "energy creation" and "energy storage" technologies packaged into the 20ft container to provide electricity to non electrified regions all over the world for a better living and sustainable society.
18 solar panels (includes 6 panels on the roof) generates about 9.9kWh of power a day, and 48 storage batteries　inside the container enables to keep supplying electricity even if it's not sunny for 3 or 4 days. It can be installed easily and is very portable.

Life Innovation Container Carried into the Site
Watching a Video Letter from Japanese Kids (electricity Supplied by Life Innovation Container )

Panasonic donated 1,000 solar powered LED lanterns to the Millennium Village in March, 2011, which stores electricity that can be generated in daytime and illuminates light at night time. These lanterns are used widely in non electrified regions. They are eco eco-friendly products which don't produce CO2 while in use.

Mr. Hidetoshi Osawa, Executive Officer of Panasonic Corporation Shakes Hands with Head Teacher of Mbola Primary School

Tanzania is a special country for Panasonic, as we have been operating dry cell battery business for 43 years there since 1968. As a stand-alone power system for a community in a non electrified area, LIC is expected to be used for audio-visual education, internet kiosk to improve villagers' access to information, or small businesses. Furthermore, we hope that it will be useful to realize sustainable society in the future.

Panasonic will strengthen the efforts to contribute towards achieving sustainable development and accomplishment of MDGs in both businesses and corporate citizenship activities. The objective is to realize our vision to become No.1 Green Innovation Company by 2018.

*The UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are an international commitment that aims to solve poverty and other social challenges in developing countries, which was formulated based on the UN Millennium Declaration adopted at the UN Millennium Summit in 2000.
The MDGs comprise of 8 goals, 18 targets, and 48 indexes to be achieved by 2015.