Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) announced a new subsidy program for lithium-ion battery stationary storage system on March 17th. Both residential and commercial users can apply for the subsidy and the program would provide up to two-thirds of the purchase prices.
Starting from the announcing date, buyers can apply for the subsidy program for purchasing and installing li-ion stationary storage system with a capacity of 1kWh or more. The total budget of the program is JP 10 billion yen ; individual applicants can get as much as 1 million yen while commercial applicants can receive a subsidy up to 100 million yen.
METI states that the program is an attempt to meet peak power demand, alluding to the shuttering of nuclear power plants after the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster. An accompanying graphic shows nighttime charging and daytime discharge to meet peak demand, Solar Server reported. With a potential PV installation of 7GW this year, Japan will need more storage systems to store electricity generated during daytime and supply the all-day consumption.
In spite of this new subsidy, METI has implemented several subsidy programs for battery production and storage systems in many regions, and those programs make it the second large nation of offering direct subsidies for energy storage systems, following after Germany. METI believes that these programs, including this li-ion battery subsidy, can progressively drive down the cost of storage systems and hence create wider deployment.
METI's announcement: www.meti.go.jp/press/2013/03/20140317004/20140317004.html (Japanese)
