As Japan’s heavily regulated energy markets continue a process of liberalisation and supposedly increasing consumer choices, utility TEPCO has launched a smart electricity tariff enabled by the capabilities of residential battery storage.
Softbank Energy and Kyocera, two major names in Japan’s solar energy industry, are partnering with utilities, grid operators and other stakeholders to execute virtual power plant (VPP) projects backed by the government.
TEPCO, one of Japan’s national utilities and grid operators, will roll out home solar-plus-storage systems for its customers as part of a drive to create a renewable energy retail business.
Chinese inverter manufacturer Sungrow has leaned on its joint venture with Samsung SDI to supply both inverters and lithium batteries to a large-scale energy storage project in Japan.
The CEO of ‘intelligent energy storage’ provider Stem Inc, has said a recently-awarded project in Japan will lean on business models the company has used in the US, while artificial intelligence (AI) technology makes that same transference possible.
Japanese trading house Itochu has invested £5 million (US$7.04 million) into UK-based energy storage and related services provider Moixa, which will enable Itochu to add Moixa’s ‘GridShare’ aggregation platform to its own suite of battery storage solutions.
Stem Inc, self-described as a supplier of “artificial intelligence-powered” energy storage, which deployed a system on average every two days last year, has closed a US$80 million Series D financing round.
Major Japanese business and government entities have extended their involvement in energy storage with the announcement of the country’s first virtual power plants, an investment in a US frequency regulation project and partnerships on technology.
The developer of one of the world’s biggest battery energy storage systems (BESS) installed globally so far will be taking its vanadium redox flow systems into the international market, beginning with a pilot in Belgium.
SB Energy, the renewables arm of Japanese firm Softbank, and Mitsubishi UFJ Leasing are to develop a 102.3MW solar PV project combined with 27MWh of battery stroage in Hokkaido, Japan.
