The ambitions of China and the U.S. companies to enter the Japanese energy storage market have been shown in recent months. As reported last week, Huawei will drop 2-MWh Energy Storage System in Japan. The same article also mentioned that the company currently has a place in the Japanese energy storage market is Tesla. Some others like BYD, which entered Japan in 2015, when BYD’s shipments of energy storage systems in Japan reached 130MW/60MW.
Japan was the fourth-largest electricity consumer last year. According to the Wood Mackenzie report, in 2030, Japan will become the third-largest energy storage country after the United States and China, reaching 25GWh. In addition, according to data from Fuji Keizai, the solar and wind energy storage market in Japan will triple from 2020 to 45.8 billion JPY.
Even with only a five million population, Tesla still strived for orders in Hokkaido last year. Tesla will provide a Megapack battery system, which can meet the electricity consumption of five hundred households per day this year. Power company Japan Renewable Energy also announced the use of Tesla’s energy storage system. In addition to the Hokkaido Battery Power Park project, Tesla also received an order from J-Power in Hiroshima last November. Noteworthy is in the J-Power project, not only Tesla but also China’s Jinko Solar tendered.
Back to Japan itself, even if local Japanese companies are slightly disadvantaged in cost control, it is hard to say that they have no chance. Because in Japan, where the business environment is more conservative, local companies still have strong customer resources. With a history of more than 100 years, Sumitomo Electric Industries delivers dozens of energy storage systems to Japanese users every year, including Tokyo Electric Power Company. They also deployed a 17MW/51MWh energy storage system in Hokkaido, directly connected to the wind farm.
Although there is no way to clearly point out which country will dominate the energy storage industry in Japan, it is certain that with a huge power consumption, Japan will undoubtedly become one of the largest markets for the global energy storage industry in the next decade.
