Solar rooftops are to be deployed at Toyota facilities across five countries, with plans to exploit synergies with existing lithium-ion batteries.

Contacted by PV Tech today, consultancy Eneo Solutions said up to 8MW of PV will be added to buildings of Toyota Material Handling Europe (TMHE), a warehouse gear-making unit within the Japanese multinational.

Eneo will own the installations and supply electricity to Toyota via power purchase agreements (PPAs), while construction and O&M will be subcontracted to third parties.

A spokesperson for Eneo explained construction of the first installation will start this year at TMHG’s European headquarters in Mj?lby, Sweden.

Decisions around the EPC for Mj?lby and the location for the four further rooftop plants will be disclosed later this year, the spokesperson added.

The programme is billed by its promoters as the first cross-border PPA arrangement seen in the global rooftop PV ecosystem.

The scheme will tap into the energy storage units already on site, used to power TMHE’s electric forklift trucks.

"The module-based Li-ion batteries will be given a third life as cost-efficient, stationary storage for solar energy,” said TMHE in a statement. “Electric trucks can be charged with solar energy, even when the sun is not shining.”

Asked by this publication what the energy storage capabilities will be – or whether new capacity will be added – the Eneo spokesperson commented: “This is something that we are working out and will disclose later on.”