Tesla is reportedly about to enter the Japanese energy market with its energy storage products, starting with a 6 MWh Megapack project.
Since its inception, Tesla has been intricately linked to Japan.
Until Panasonic, a Japanese company, no other battery supplier wanted to sell li-ion to Tesla for use in electric cars.
For years and until it started production in China, Tesla exclusively used Panasonic battery cells in its vehicles.
It even led Elon Musk to once say that the heart of Tesla vehicles was Japanese.
The automaker had some success with its electric vehicles on the market, but it never became a significant market for Tesla.
More recently, Tesla sales have been increasing in Japan following a Model 3 price drop that enabled the electric car to access local EV subsidies.
Now, Tesla is also expanding its Tesla Energy division in the country.
Nikkei reported that Tesla is working with large power companies in Japan to deploy energy storage systems and help the electric grid.
Local company Global Engineering Co confirmed that it is working with Tesla to deploy a 6 MWh energy storage system in Japan’s northern island of Hokkaido (via Bloomberg):
Tesla will start by delivering batteries for an energy storage project in Japan’s northern island of Hokkaido. The 6-megawatt hour system, capable of meeting the power needs of about 500 households, will be overseen by Global Engineering Co. It will begin operation in 2022, a representative from the Japanese energy company said.
The system is relatively small in size compared to other energy systems Tesla has recently deployed.
However, power companies have been known to start with relatively small energy storage test projects before moving to large-scale projects.
Last quarter, Tesla deployed 1,274 MWh of energy storage capacity — a 204% increase over the same period last year.
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