LS ELECTRIC said on the 28th that it held a groundbreaking ceremony on the 27th in Ichihara, Chiba Prefecture, Japan, for a grid-connected energy storage system (ESS) power plant featuring a 2-megawatt (MW) power conversion system (PCS) and an 8-megawatt-hour (MWh) battery.
A grid-connected ESS is an energy storage system that stores electricity by connecting to the power grid and supplies it when needed to improve the efficiency of power use. It offsets the volatility of renewable power generation such as solar and wind, which have high variability.
In this project, LS ELECTRIC will supply core power equipment including the PCS and build an energy management system (EMS) for stable operation and efficient power utilization.
In particular, this project is the first in which LS ELECTRIC will directly handle investment and operation in Japan.
Until now, in global ESS projects, financial institutions, investment funds, power companies, and consortia have handled investment, while power equipment companies have mainly been responsible for engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) and integrated operation (O&M).
Earlier, in Apr., LS ELECTRIC won a project to build a grid-connected ESS power plant in the Watari area of Miyagi Prefecture, Japan, with 20 MW and a battery capacity of 90 MWh. It is the largest among Japanese grid-connected ESS projects by Korean corporations.
Also, in 2022, it built the first grid-connected ESS power plants in Hokkaido and Kyushu, Japan.
LS ELECTRIC's strategy is to leverage the stable implementation capabilities accumulated in Japanese ESS projects to expand into direct investment and more aggressively target the market.
Japan is subsidizing installation costs to expand the adoption of ESS, which is essential for renewable power generation, and the market is growing rapidly. Aiming for carbon neutrality by 2050, it plans to raise the share of renewables from 19.8% in 2020 to 36%–38% by 2030.
Cho Uk-dong, executive vice president and head of division at LS ELECTRIC, said, "This project is the first step in directly participating in Japan's power market and stepping forward as a driver of the energy transition," adding, "Based on the recognition we have earned through successful execution of ESS projects in Japan, we plan to participate more actively in Japan's growing ESS market by expanding our footprint through direct investment and power trading in the local market."