Nikkei reports on plans by Seven Eleven to install battery systems for about 1.3 million yen a piece at 100 of their Japanese stores. Thanks to this tweet by Keiichiro Sakurai for the link.
They would have a capacity of storing 27 kWh, which would reduce electricity costs by up to 20 percent. They would load up the battery at night time, when electricity is cheap, and use it when they use most of their air conditioning at daytime.
That’s good news. Anything that helps increase the market for small scale battery storage will help get costs down. That in turn will be vital for getting transport to switch to electricity, as well as for continuing deploying solar in Germany once the 52 GW ceiling for the feed-in tariff is reached in 2015 and the market switches to systems aimed mostly at self consumption.