U-POWER launched efforts to partner with and acquire a portfolio of solar assets to convert from feed-in-tariff (FIT) to feed-in-premium (FIP) and co-locate with battery storage, aiming to improve their declining returns due to curtailment, it announced on June 17, 2025.
According to the statement, under the partnership model, the company will install battery storage at FIT-to-FIP-converted solar power plants in Kyushu at no cost, while offering asset owners the equivalent of lost revenue from curtailment. It will also assist with the conversion process. Alternatively, it will acquire assets and take them through the same process within its own portfolio.
“Furthermore, using this service as a starting point, we aim to fully enter the aggregator business using storage batteries,” U-POWER said.
The inquiry form for the new service suggests the company may be especially interested in assets over 500kW with FIT prices of 29 yen per kWh and higher (rates below that grouped into one category). While initially limiting the service to Kyushu, U-POWER said it will consider expanding the service to other TSO areas in the future.
So far, Kyushu, which has been the first region in Japan to experience economic curtailment, has been hit the hardest. In FY2025, METI expects about 1TWh of solar and wind generation to be curtailed in the area, equal to approximately 6% of expected output, up from 459GWh in FY2019.
Curtailment outside Kyushu occurred for the first time in FY2022 and since then has spread to all grid areas except for Tokyo. It affects Tohoku, Hokuriku, Chugoku, and Shikoku in particular, with each area expected to record a curtailment rate of over 2% in FY2025 according to METI’s forecast.
U-POWER’s initiative follows a similar service launched jointly by Omron Field Engineering and Tokyo Century in November 2024.
