Monthly Report

JFE Engineering’s first grid-scale BESS project begins commercial operations

October 21, 2024
JFE Engineering Kumamoto BESS
The new facility is JFE Engineering’s first operational grid-scale BESS facility. (Image: JFE Engineering)

On October 1, 2024, JFE Engineering and its partners commissioned a 2MW/8.4MWh grid-scale BESS facility in Nagasu Town, Kumamoto Prefecture, the companies announced on October 21, 2024, following the facility’s opening ceremony held at the end of last week.

The new facility is located on the premises of Kyushu-Tech, a JFE Shoji group company, and owned by J&S Chikuden LLC, a joint venture between JFE Engineering, JFE Shoji, and SDL, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Tokyo Century. The development of the project, which was subsidized through Sustainable Open Innovation Initiative’s FY2022 subsidy for introducing distributed energy resources, was first announced in late July 2023.

JFE Engineering did the project’s engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC), and will be in charge of the facility’s operation and maintenance (O&M) going forward. Its wholly-owned subsidiary Urban Energy will use JFE Multiuse EMS, a system it co-developed with its parent, to create charging and disharging plans aimed at maximizing the project’s profitability.

While JFE Engineering started developing BESS facilities in 2022, all nine projects totaling 3.2MW/15MWh it commissioned prior before the latest project are behind-the-meter. The company is now participating in the development of its second, similarly-sized grid-scale BESS project together with Osaka Gas, ML Power, and Kyushu Steel.

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