METI Establishes Project Team to Promote Storage Battery Industry

Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) announced on January 6, 2012, that they have established a Storage Battery Strategy Project Team in the ministry in order to continuously study medium- to long-term strategies for the storage battery industry.

The storage battery industry is expected to be a growth sector with a potential for market expansion in the following areas: load leveling on both the supply and demand sides of electricity; use as a dispersed power source in a smart grid society; and applications related to automobiles and emergency situations. To ensure growth of the storage battery market, the government needs to take a holistic approach by integrating energy, information and manufacturing industry policies.

The team consists of representatives of three departments: the Agency for Natural Resources and Energy, which oversees energy policies; the Commerce and Information Policy Bureau, which is responsible for battery industry and information policies; and the Manufacturing Industries Bureau, which supervises industrial policies regarding the application of storage batteries, including next-generation vehicles. The goal of the team is to formulate and implement integrated strategic policies for storage batteries, including creation of future storage battery markets, industrial competitiveness enhancement, and international standardization of relevant technologies.

METI Sets up Study Group on Future of Japanese Battery System Industry (Related JFS article)
http://www.japanfs.org/en/pages/029254.html

Posted: 2012/03/30 06:00:15 AM