Mitsubishi Gas Chemical (MGC) has been selected under Niigata City's subsidy program for perovskite solar cell demonstration projects, and will work with EneCoat Technologies, the Kyoto-based perovskite solar cell developer, and Scholars Co., an Osaka firm led by Ritsumeikan University professor Takashi Minemoto, to test self-powered IoT devices combining perovskite solar cells with high-performance polycarbonate components.
The demonstration will run inside the MGC Mitsubishi Gas Chemical Ice Arena in Niigata's Chuo Ward, chosen specifically for its low-temperature, low-light, large indoor space, conditions where conventional solar cells generally can't generate useful power. Perovskite cells can generate electricity under low-light conditions, opening up indoor lighting as a viable power source for IoT devices in settings like this one. MGC said pairing the cells with its polycarbonate components, which are lightweight and impact-resistant, is meant to widen the range of locations and applications where such self-powered devices could be deployed.
This builds on an existing partnership between MGC and EneCoat: in October 2025, the two companies showed a small mobility demonstrator powered by EneCoat's perovskite cells at the Japan Mobility Show, with MGC supplying polycarbonate components engineered for high light transmittance in the perovskite's power-generation wavelength range. The work sits within MGC's "Grow UP 2026" mid-term strategy, which names ICT and mobility as priority R&D areas.
The Niigata subsidy program supports the city's goal of becoming a zero-carbon city by 2050, and follows a separate cooperation agreement between the city and the University of Tokyo's Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology on renewable energy adoption. Japanese press reports on the subsidy program describe it as covering up to half of eligible project costs, capped around ¥5 million (roughly $34,000) per project, though MGC's own announcement did not disclose the amount awarded for this specific project. MGC said findings from the demonstration will feed into its future perovskite technology development and implementation studies across a range of environments and applications.
