Japanese companies team up for battery storage project to fuel clean energy expansion

Tokyo Century

07/06/2023 08:25

June 7 (Reuters) - Japan's Itochu Corp  8001.T  said on
Wednesday it has jointly established a power storage company
with Osaka Gas Co  9532.T  and Tokyo Century Corp  8439.T , as
the country's expansion in renewable energy drives demand for
storage capacity. 
    The joint venture would start construction of large-scale
lithium ion storage batteries in Osaka prefecture in the first
half of the current fiscal year, to be launched in the fiscal
year of 2025, Itochu said in a statement. 
    Batteries are central to Japan becoming carbon neutral by
2050, as they are critical for storage of renewable energy to
smoothen output fluctuations. 
    The project will have capacity of 23 megawatt hours and
output of 11 megawatt, for which Itochu would provide storage
batteries and construction, Osaka Gas would trade the power and
Tokyo Century would do business management. 
    Japan is targeting over $24 billion in investments both from
the public and private sectors to develop domestic battery
production capacity of 150 gigawatt hours (GWh) by 2030,
including for electric vehicles, and global production by
Japanese companies of 600 GWh.
    

 (Reporting by Katya Golubkova; Editing by Rashmi Aich)
 ((ekaterina.golubkova@thomsonreuters.com;))