Sumitomo Electric to provide Hokkaido with RE battery system

System will have 60 MW hours of storage capacity.

Sumitomo Electric Industries Ltd will supply a large-size storage battery system to stabilize the flow of wind and solar power on the northern island of Hokkaido.

The battery system will be set up at Hokkaido Electric Power Co’s Minami Hayakita substation in the town of Abira and will have 60 megawatt hours of storage capacity.

Sumitomo Electric is a Japanese maker of electric wire, cables and electric monitoring systems.

The battery system is among three to be installed on Hokkaido since the island is a popular site for large-size solar projects because of its inexpensive and flat land.

The battery system using vanadium redox flow battery technology will increase Hokkaido Electric’s capacity for wind and solar by about 40 MW. It will be installed by March 2015 for the three-year pilot project.

By the end of March, solar applications for grid connections on Hokkaido totaled 1,568 MW for plants of 2 MW or larger.