Peer-to-peer (P2P) energy trading using distributed battery storage in Japanese households could be a scalable business once prohibitive rules change in a couple of years’ time, a provider of renewable energy equipment in the country has said.

Transmission and distribution network operator Hokkaido Electric Power has contracted Sumitomo Electric Industries to supply a grid-scale flow battery energy storage system for a wind farm in northern Japan.

One of the first large-scale solar farms in Japan so far to be equipped with battery storage in order to meet the requirements of a local grid operator and utility, has been completed on the island of Hokkaido.

Mitsubishi Corporation said today that it is partnering with major Japanese telecoms provider NTT to “study cooperation” in renewables, energy management using electric vehicles and battery energy storage, while according to reports, NTT is investing around US$1 billion a year in renewable energy up to 2030.

Itochu, a major Japanese corporation which has sold over 330MWh of residential battery storage systems in its home market, has invested ¥1 billion (US$9.35 million) in TRENDE, a renewable energy retailer which counts utility company Tokyo Electric Power among its major shareholders, with a view to launching a range of renewable energy and storage-enabled services.

Targeting a national economic goal in mind of making hydrogen competitive with natural gas, Australia’s government has put AU$70 million (US$44.3 million) into a “deployment funding round” for renewable hydrogen.

NEC Corporation representatives have said that while the domestic market opportunity for battery energy storage remains fairly small for the Japanese company, it is expected to “increase dramatically” within the next three years at commercial and industrial (C&I) and utility-scale.

A 10MW hydrogen production plant powered from renewable energy has just opened in Fukushima Prefecture, Japan, and is thought to be the world’s largest to date.

With Japanese companies keen to learn from their counterparts in deregulated energy markets such as the UK, the Japan Energy Challenge provided the ideal forum for exchanging ideas. Andy Colthorpe reports.

It has always been anticipated that by the early 2020s, the feed-in tariff would have tapered away in Japan’s booming solar market. Andy Colthorpe speaks with analyst Izumi Kaizuka at RTS Corporation to learn more about what the future holds for post-subsidy solar in Japan.