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In an effort to promote a technology that will be essential to the widespread adoption of renewable energy, Japan will mandate that electric utilities make their grids accessible to energy storage systems run by other businesses.
To make battery storage systems competitive with other forms of energy storage, the government would also subsidise them up to 50% of the cost using fund from the fiscal supplementary budget.
During this fiscal year, it intends to invite applications. More independent businesses are anticipated to enter the market as demand increases. Large-scale battery storage is needed for stabilising the variable supply of electricity from such renewable sources as solar and wind. Grid administrators must already permit other businesses to connect their electricity generation in Japan.
By fiscal, Japan hopes to increase its solar and wind energy production capacity to between gigawatts and gigawatts. According to experts, grid storage that is comparable to around a tenth of the renewable capacity in this situation, or about gigawatts, is sufficient to maintain supply.
Currently, Japan’s grid has essentially little battery storage, with the exception of test projects. As renewable energy has gained popularity, battery system demand has increased in various areas.
In Europe, North America, and China, sales of batteries for transmission grids reached gigawatt-hours, but in Japan, they only reached megawatt-hours. Due to its drive into offshore wind, the U.K. has emerged as a leader in the industry, and the market in the U.S. state of California has expanded as well.
The Japan Energy Storage market accounted for $XX Billion in 2023 and is anticipated to reach $XX Billion by 2030, registering a CAGR of XX% from 2024 to 2030.
Energy storage has long been a crucial part of energy infrastructure systems in industrialised markets, delivering value by keeping the energy system flexible while remaining economical across the energy supply chain.
Coal-fired and nuclear energy supply chains have undoubtedly benefited from the growth of energy storage markets, but as energy landscapes in the major industrialised markets, and particularly in Japan, have changed, new problems and demands have arisen.
As a result, new technologies and regulatory responses to energy storage have emerged. The development of energy storage markets and technology is crucial for the economic and logistical growth of both smart grid technologies and renewable energy generation technologies in the future.
In Japan, the Fourth Strategic Energy Policy, which was developed in the wake of the Fukushima disaster, explicitly states that an energy storage policy should be established and promoted along with an overall energy policy that emphasises regional flexibility, energy diversification, and improved regional self-sufficiency.
The plan notably calls out the significance of solar, wind, and hydropower as strategic energy generation technologies and makes reference to the markets for energy storage that are mentioned in the Japan revival strategy.
The transition to an energy landscape marked by generalised end-user flexibility and regional self-sufficiency, in which end-users can contribute generation capacity and regions can rely on widely diversified energy-generation and energy-sourcing measures, is supported by a developed energy-storage market.
First BESS in Japan to commercially trade energy commissioned by the country’s biggest solar developer. A significant step has been taken towards the creation of a market for utility-scale battery storage in Japan with the trading of electricity from two new projects by developer Pacifico Electricity.
The news that commercial operations for the battery energy storage system (BESS) projects have begun includes the opening of power market bids. Each location contains a 2MW, 4-hour BESS (8MWh).
Both projects’ construction started and they were promptly finished so that they could begin operating for profit. One is in Shiroishi, a ward of Sapporo City on the island of Hokkaido, in the northeastern part of Japan.
The other is located in Itoshima City, Fukuoka Prefecture, on the island of Kyushu, at the other end of the country’s major archipelago.It was among the first initiatives in the nation to be chosen by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) for a government subsidy programme intended to encourage the introduction of renewable energy across the nation.
Japan wants to use some renewable energy on its power grid, and METI has selected BESS as a critical technology to make that happen. Regulations have been modified to permit standalone battery storage facilities like Pacifico’s to participate in electricity markets along with the subsidy programme, which aids in covering equipment costs.
The two new BESS projects, according to the head of battery storage at Pacifico Energy, were developed before the subsidy programme, which was implemented a few months after they began.The developer is undoubtedly not the only one who has recognised this possible opening. Major Japanese conglomerate Itochu and utility Osaka Gas have teamed up to create a grid-connected 11MW/23MWh BESS in Osaka, Japan’s second-largest city, Energy-Storage.
Nevertheless, a number of these players have prior experience working with battery storage from those other more developed markets. Other significant players in the country’s energy and renewables sector include developer Eurus Energy, financial services company Orix, and conglomerates Toyota Tsusho and Mitsubishi Corporation, among others.
First BESS in Japan to commercially trade energy commissioned by the country’s biggest solar developer.A significant step has been taken towards the creation of a market for utility-scale battery storage in Japan with the trading of electricity from two new projects by developer Pacifico Electricity. The news that commercial operations for the battery energy storage system (BESS) projects have begun includes the opening of power market bids. Each location contains a 2MW, 4-hour BESS (8MWh).
