Disaster pushes Japan to experiment with new forms of solar energy

The earthquake and tsunami that wreaked havoc on Japan earlier this year has brought attention on the nuclear power industry and called for more use of renewable energy sources. Nissan and Mitsubishi have both made major strides using solar power.

According to Reuters, Nissan developed a battery that can be charged using solar power for their Nissan Leaf electric vehicle, and Mitsubishi created a portable charging station, that provides electric vehicles with enough capacity to power household electronics. Due to the recent disasters, Japanese automakers needed to ramp up efforts to provide electricity.

Another experiment with solar power comes from Toyota. Two weeks ago, Toyota conducted a trial for model home that will utilize varying amounts of solar power and manage electricity based on weather forecasts. Monitoring the surrounding weather conditions allows the home to use the least amount of energy as possible.

In the future, Toyota believes it can link several homes together to share clean energy and plans to sell 67 of these smart homes by 2013.