Sun Village announced it connected its first self-owned battery energy storage facility, the 2MW/8MWh Ashikaga Kariyado Power Storage Station, to the electricity grid in Ashikaga City, Tochigi Prefecture, on September 16. The information was made public on October 17. The asset will be aggregated by Marubeni Power Retail under a contract covering wholesale, balancing and capacity market participation.
This project is the first of four high-voltage assets included in the agreement between the two companies. Sun Village managed the development, engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) of the storage facility. No commercial operation date (COD) was disclosed by the company.
A gradual deployment in the high-voltage storage segment
The Ashikaga facility is the fourth high-voltage battery storage project built by Sun Village, following two units in the Chubu transmission system operator (TSO) area and one in the Tokyo TSO area, all owned by other investors. Founded in 2012, the company initially focused on developing solar power plants under the feed-in-tariff (FIT) scheme in the northern Kanto region, before expanding into large-scale storage and non-FIT solar projects.
Headquartered in Tochigi, the company plans to develop and build 250 battery energy storage systems (BESS), aiming for a total capacity of 500MW. The Ashikaga project marks a key milestone in its strategy to directly own energy assets.
A capital and operational partnership with Marubeni
The partnership with Marubeni Power Retail forms part of a broader cooperation launched in 2024, when Marubeni invested JPY2bn ($13.4mn) in Sun Village. The equity investment came with a capital and business alliance focused on the non-FIT solar segment.
Since July 2025, the two companies have been offering a turnkey solution for the development, deployment and operation of large-scale storage assets, with a target to contract 100MW by year-end. The Ashikaga unit represents the first operational outcome of this joint strategy.
