- The Tokyo show hosts several co-located exhibition and conference strands, including PV Expo and Battery Japan.
- Sungrow claimed more than 9 GWh orders had already been booked for PowerTitan globally.
CATL, Jinkosolar and Sungrow exhibited battery storage products at World Smart Energy Week in Japan last week. The country’s utility-scale BESS and commercial and industrial (C&I) markets showed strong potential. The Tokyo show hosts several co-located exhibition and conference strands, including PV Expo and Battery Japan. While it had been much quieter than usual during the first two years of the pandemic, the show attracted tens of thousands of guests in years before that. Held last week, the 2023 show marked a return to that previous form, and while video of the event shows guests being masked up as a safety measure, the numbers looked healthy.
CATL, the world’s biggest manufacturer of lithium-ion batteries, also makes complete energy storage solutions, including racks, cabinets and containerised battery energy storage system (BESS) units. The company exhibited the range at international shows last year, including RE+ 2022 in California, US. It also announced a 10GWh multi-year supply deal with system integrator FlexGen and a similarly-sized agreement with the UK’s Gresham House a few months later.
The Japanese commercial and industrial (C&I) market segment has a strong business case for peak shaving applications, and SunGiga is aimed at this segment. Compatible with 1000V and 1500V DC systems, each cabinet has up to 344kWh capacity in eight battery modules. It can be configured in system sizes from 500kWh to 2MWh, suitable for up to 4-hour durations, with an integrated power conversion system (PCS), switchgear and fire protection system. It comes with automatic state of charge (SoC) calibration, while the liquid cooling and other thermal management can keep temperature difference within 2℃, JinkoSolar claimed.
Similarly, Sungrow, a major player in solar PV from China, exhibited its liquid-cooled PowerTitan energy storage system (ESS) for utility-scale applications as part of its complete portfolio, together with residential and C&I products. Launched fairly recently and featured in a PV Tech Tech Talk webinar in November 2022, Sungrow claimed more than 9 GWh of orders had already been booked for PowerTitan globally. The system features a DC-DC controller, which can charge and discharge individual battery racks. Sungrow said PowerTitan is being launched in Japan to capture growing promise in the utility-scale space. The company said it “holds great potential, especially for the demand for frequency regulation”.