A large-scale sodium-sulfur battery energy storage system made by NGK Insulators will be installed at an LNG site in Japan.
Integrated utility company Toho Gas, which serves 54 cities in central Japan, has ordered 11.4MW/69.6MWh of sodium-sulfur battery systems to be deployed at the Tsu LNG terminal in Mie Prefecture.
Headquartered in Nagoya, NGK is a company specializing in the production of industrial ceramics for a wide range of applications. It developed sodium-sulfur battery technology in the mid-1980s and deployed it in more than 200 projects around the world.
As of March 2021, the system scale is about 600MW/4200MWh. High-temperature sodium-sulfur batteries are suitable for long-term energy storage and can be discharged for 6 hours at full output power, or up to 18 hours at one-third output power.
The technology was selected for Mongolia's first large-scale solar-plus-storage project in March last year, and BASF installed a 950kW/5.8MWh sodium-sulfur battery system at one of its plants in October 2021.
The sodium-sulfur battery contains sulfur as the positive electrode, sodium as the negative electrode, and uses beta alumina as the electrolyte. The design life is 15 years, which is equivalent to about 4,500 cycles, or 300 cycles per year.
At the Tsu LNG site, the batteries will be integrated into the grid, storing electricity during off-peak periods and when renewable energy generation is plentiful, and discharging to support the grid during peak periods and periods of supply shortage.
Toho Gas said that by installing a sodium-sulfur battery energy storage system, the company's own supply and demand can be adjusted.
The project, which is subsidized by the Japanese government and is currently underway, is scheduled for completion in fiscal 2025, and is managed by the Natural Resources and Energy Agency (METI) under the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.
The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said that in order to reach Japan's goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2050, the use of renewable energy must be increased. By 2030, the target proportion of renewable energy in the entire power grid is 36%-38%, and the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry has identified energy storage as a key technology to achieve the medium and long-term goals.
In Japan, however, despite the thousands of residential battery storage systems being sold each month, there is a general perception that battery storage is too costly. At present, Japanese industrial and commercial entities are also leasing or purchasing energy storage systems for peak shaving and lowering electricity bills, but grid-scale battery energy storage has not yet become mainstream.
Therefore, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry is supporting the deployment of battery projects, which will provide one-third to two-thirds of the upfront cost, and the subsidy level is linked to the scope of application of the system and the type of technology.
The total budget of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry to pay subsidies is 13 billion yen, and the goals also include promoting upstream production and innovation, such as establishing an annual production capacity of 150GWh of lithium-ion batteries in Japan and 600GWh of production capacity globally by 2030, aiming to achieve a After that, the field of solid-state batteries is in a leading position.
