Originally published on RenewEconomy
Japan is emerging as a hot-spot for energy storage projects, as utilities and technology companies look to battery-based solutions in response to the surge in solar PV installations.
Two new battery storage projects have been announced in the past week, with Toshiba to install a 20MWh/40MW lithium-ion battery project in Tohuku, and the island of Okinawa announcing a 2MW battery storage project on Tuesday.
Japan is expected to be the largest market for solar PV installations in 2013, with around 9GW to be installed following the introduction of feed in tariffs last year in response to the Fukushima nuclear disaster.
This year, the Japanese government launched a $300 million grant program to support the installation of large scale battery systems to help integrate renewables into the grid.
Bloomberg New Energy Finance reports that the Toshiba system announced on November 26 will provide frequency regulation and operating reserves for Tohoku Electric. It is due to be commissioned in February next year.
On Okinawa, the country’s southern-most island, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry announced a 2MW lead battery storage system to respond to up to 57MW of solar farms of 300kW or more that are expected to be in place by the end of the year.
The ministry says this is reaching capacity for the island and new systems may not be able to be installed without storage. The 2MW system may increase the renewable capacity by around 10 per cent. The pilot project will be combined with another study into grid management.
Earlier this year, the northern island of Hokkaido also announced a 60MWh/15MW redox flow battery storage project would be built by Sumitomo because of the large amount of solar PV systems being installed.
Hokkaido Electric has received applications for 1.6GW of solar PV projects of 2MW or more, thanks to its large amounts of available land, but the utility estimates it can only cope with 400MW of that. It has only one 600MW inteconnecter with neighbouring Tohuku Electric.
Japan intends to reform its regional grid system and electricity market in the next few years to facilitate the introduction of more distributed energy. Currently 10 regional utilities are responsible for different sections of the grid and have a monopoly in each region for generation, transmission and distribution, and legislation is being introduced to loosen the control of the vertically-integrated utilities.
Sign up for daily news updates from CleanTechnica on email. Or follow us on Google News!
Have a tip for CleanTechnica, want to advertise, or want to suggest a guest for our CleanTech Talk podcast? Contact us here.
Former Tesla Battery Expert Leading Lyten Into New Lithium-Sulfur Battery Era — Podcast:
I don't like paywalls. You don't like paywalls. Who likes paywalls? Here at CleanTechnica, we implemented a limited paywall for a while, but it always felt wrong — and it was always tough to decide what we should put behind there. In theory, your most exclusive and best content goes behind a paywall. But then fewer people read it! We just don't like paywalls, and so we've decided to ditch ours. Unfortunately, the media business is still a tough, cut-throat business with tiny margins. It's a never-ending Olympic challenge to stay above water or even perhaps — gasp — grow. So ...
