Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) has announced plans to install the world’s largest battery at an electrical substation in the prefecture of Hokkaido, which has a high number of solar installations.
According to Kyodo News Service the battery is expected to have a storage capacity of around 60MWh, and to be set up by March 2015.
The project is expected to use up a large proportion of a ¥29.6 billion (US$299.5 million) fund allocated to battery projects by the Japanese government in its 2012 budget.
METI also envisages its storage battery market to account for about half of the global market share of which one third will be made up of large-scale storage batteries by 2020.
Figures released in December last year by METI showed Hokkaido, Japan’s second largest island, as having the highest installed capacity compared to the country’s other 47 prefectures, due to the availability and inexpensive cost of land in the region.
Earlier this week PV-Tech reported that Japan added 1,394MW in clean energy capacity between 1 April 2012 and 31 January 2013, of which solar PV accounted for 1,329MW. In addition, a Bloomberg New Energy Finance report has forecast Japan’s solar industry to hit between 6.1GW and 9.4GW of installed capacity this year.
