Chugoku Electric Power, Chudenko, ML Power, and the Development Bank of Japan will jointly develop the 32MW/96MWh Kudamatsu No. 2 Power Storage Station at the site of the former Kudamatsu Power Station in Kudamatsu City, Yamaguchi Prefecture, the companies announced on August 17, 2026.
According to the statement, construction of the asset is scheduled to begin in August 2026, with commercial operation following in FY2029. The project is held by the special purpose company (SPC) Kudamatsu Battery Energy LLC. The four partners did not disclose their equity split.
Operations of the asset will be integrated with those of the 16MW/48MWh Kudamatsu No. 1 Power Storage Station, which is wholly-owned by Chugoku Electric Power. The original project has been under construction on the same site since December 2025 and is expected to be commissioned within FY2028.
Data from the Sustainable Open Innovation Initiative (SII), which administers METI’s support scheme for grid-scale battery storage, shows the new project was awarded approximately 2.65 billion yen in FY2025 with Chugoku Electric Power, Chudenko, and ML Power listed as the applicants. Kudamatsu No. 1 Power Storage Station secured about 1.96 billion yen in the FY2024 round.
The utility said it aims to accumulate optimization know-how from the two projects to expand into aggregation services as a new revenue stream.
ML Power, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Mizuho Leasing, holds stakes in several other storage facilities, including the 8.7MW/19.7MWh Biwako Power Storage Station and the 2MW/8MWh Funahashi Power Storage Station. Kudamatsu No. 2 Power Storage Station is Chudenko’s first disclosed grid-scale battery asset.
Kudamatsu Power Station was a 700MW oil-fired asset that was taken out of active service in February 2019 and decommissioned in January 2023. The site’s repurposing highlights the potential for redeveloping retired thermal power plants into large-scale battery storage assets leveraging the available land and grid connection.
