Toshiba was one of the few major tech companies left in Japan (maybe even the last) that has never fully viewed solar energy as a significant pillar of current and future business. But this radically changed yesterday.

The company announced in Tokyo it has established a new division  (Photovoltaic Systems) to manage and promote solar energy both in Japan and on an international level. It’s aiming for sales of $2.2 billion by 2015 (which is a quite bold goal seeing current sales in the solar business are not even reaching $10 million).

Toshiba says it wants a piece of the global solar technology market, which is – according to the company – expected to grow from the present $13.3 billion to a whopping $ 24.4 billion by 2015. While it’s unclear whether Toshiba will manufacture solar panels, the production of large-scale solar power generation systems is one of the main parts of the new solar business strategy.