
At a meeting of Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry’s study group on the expansion of stationary battery energy storage systems (BESS) held on August 29, 2024, Mitsubishi Research Institute (MRI) presented findings of a study about costs associated with and profitability of grid-scale battery storage facilities.
The research firm found the system costs excluding taxes to have increased 26.5% from 49,000 yen/kWh in FY2022 to 62,000 yen/kWh in FY2023. The majority of the increase was driven by the increase in the cost of the batteries themselves. That portion of the overall system cost has increased by 33.3% from 36,000 yen/kWh to 48,000 yen/kWh due to the weaker yen and increase in raw materials costs.
Installation costs increased by 16.7% from 12,000 yen/kWh to 14,000 yen/kWh. Their proportion of the overall BESS installed cost decreased from 24% to 22% due to the increase of system-related costs.
According to the BESS industry stakeholders interviewed by MRI as part of the study, foreign-made battery systems are cheaper, ranging between as low as 20,000 and 40,000 yen/kWh, and the cost of BESS subsidies is high due to the subsidies being awarded based on an overall rating rather than examining project costs.
MRI developed three scenarios to assess the profitability of BESS projects used for arbitrage in Japan over a 20-year period. The maximum capital expenditures per kWh for projects to have positive returns have been estimated to be approximately:
- Pessimistic: 30,000 yen/kWh
- Base: 60,000 yen/kWh
- Optimistic: 80,000 yen/kWh
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