In the global trend of accelerating the transition to clean energy, Japan has become a key target market for global energy storage industry chain enterprises to compete for, thanks to its comprehensive policy support, huge market demand, and high technological acceptance. Some institutions predict that the installed capacity of Japan's battery energy storage system is expected to increase from 2GWh in 2023 to 40GWh in 2030.
      Entering 2025, in less than two months, multiple global energy storage industry chain enterprises such as CATL, Tesla, Guoxuan High Tech, China Energy Engineering, and Dongfang Risheng have successively reported good news of winning orders in the Japanese market.
      Especially the 18th Japan International Smart Energy Week and PV EXPO recently held in Tokyo, Japan, have focused the industry's attention on Japan, the "new battlefield" for global energy storage. Ningde Times, EVE Energy, BYD Energy Storage, Haichen Energy Storage, Guoxuan High tech, Chuneng New Energy, Xinneng An, Weihong, Dongfang Risheng, Mingmei New Energy, Deye, Tianhe Energy Storage and other Chinese enterprises appeared at the exhibition, showcasing tailored energy storage solutions for the local market.
       Accompanying Japan's power shortage crisis is the increasing emphasis on new energy in the local area, leading to rapid development of the energy storage market. By 2025, companies from China, Europe, America, South Korea, and other regions will frequently sign energy storage orders in Japan, and the Japanese energy storage market is currently engaged in a wonderful "battle for power".
      On February 20th, CATL signed a 300MWh energy storage supply contract with TAOKE, a well-known renewable energy solution provider in Japan. Its products will be used for TAOKE's grid side energy storage projects in Japan. It is understood that this is not the first cooperation between the two parties. As early as 2018, CATL had reached a cooperation agreement with Taoke New Energy in the field of household storage. In 2024, a 350MWh battery purchase and sales agreement was signed, expanding the scope of cooperation to industrial and commercial energy storage as well as grid energy storage. The signing of another grid side supply order this time means that CATL is gradually deepening its layout in the Japanese energy storage market by binding to Taoke New Energy.
      On the same day, Dongfang Risheng Energy Storage signed an 80MWh energy storage strategic cooperation agreement with Nextdrive Corporation from Taiwan and Nengda Corporation from Japan; It has also signed a distributor agency agreement and strategic agreement with BYH TOKYO, which is expected to purchase 50MWh of energy storage products. This indicates that the global strategy of Eastern Rising Energy Storage is gradually expanding outward from the three mainstream markets of China, the United States, and Europe, and has now included the Japanese market.
      Guoxuan High tech will participate in this Japan exhibition with its independently developed new 7MWh container energy storage system and multiple products such as 650Ah batteries. According to reports, it has reached cooperation agreements with multiple internationally renowned energy companies with a total scale of over 7GWh. It is worth mentioning that in March last year, Guoxuan High Tech cooperated with Daiwa Energy and CO2OS to develop and operate energy storage power plants in Japan, winning a large order of 1GWh of energy storage batteries, and successfully delivering multiple energy storage power plant projects in Okinawa Prefecture, Osaka Prefecture, Ibaraki Prefecture, Kyushu region, Northeast region and other parts of Japan. This indicates that Guoxuan High Tech is steadily expanding into the Japanese energy storage market.
      Not only Chinese enterprises, but also American storage companies are intensively investing in the Japanese market. In early February, Tesla announced a partnership with Japanese financial services group ORIX. Tesla will provide 142 Tesla Megapack large storage products with a single capacity of 3.86MWh for the Mihara Koto Electric Power Storage Plant in Shiga Prefecture, Japan, with a total capacity of 134MW/548MWh. The plant is scheduled to be put into operation in 2027.
       Some analysts believe that Tesla ranks among the top in the two major energy storage markets of North America and Europe, with a significant position. However, it has not entered the top four in the Asia Pacific market. Tesla's strong entry into the Japanese market marks that its energy storage products have gained recognition from Japanese energy storage owners in terms of cost-effectiveness and technical solutions, and is expected to further expand its market share in Japan. Especially on February 11th this year, Tesla's Shanghai energy storage super factory was officially put into operation, and production capacity began to climb in the first quarter of this year. Once the production capacity of its Megapack energy storage system with an annual output of 40GWh is released, the Japanese energy storage market will inevitably be within its radiation range.
       Fluence, a US energy storage system integrator ranked among the top five globally, announced in January this year that it would open an office in Japan to deeply participate in the continuously growing energy storage market in Japan and expand its business in the Asia Pacific region.
       In addition, in the face of enormous market potential, Japanese domestic companies such as Panasonic, Hitachi, Sony, Toshiba, Sumitomo, and NEC, as well as Korean companies such as LG New Energy and Samsung SDI, are intensively investing in the Japanese energy storage market. For example, in September last year, local Japanese companies such as Toyota, Nissan, and Panasonic announced a joint investment of a total of 1 trillion yen to expand Japan's energy storage battery production capacity by 50%.CIBF