Gurin Energy Taps Saft for 240-MW Fukushima Battery Landmark Project

• Gurin Energy selects Saft to supply a 240-MW/4-hour BESS in Fukushima, Japan—over 1 GWh of storage to support renewables; construction starts 2026.

Singapore-based developer Gurin Energy has chosen Saft, the battery arm of TotalEnergies, to supply a lithium-ion battery energy storage system (BESS) for its debut Japanese project—a 240-MW, four-hour facility in Soma City, Fukushima Prefecture. Slated to break ground in 2026, the plant will deliver more than 1 GWh of storage, making it one of the country’s largest stand-alone batteries and Gurin’s first asset outside Southeast Asia.

Saft will provide fully integrated Intensium® Flex containers, complete with inverters, power-conversion equipment and the company’s cloud-based I-Sight monitoring platform that uses AI to predict performance drifts and schedule maintenance. The package also includes long-term operations and servicing, giving Gurin an anchored lifecycle partner for the project’s 20-year design life.

Designed for a four-hour discharge window, the BESS will soak up surplus solar and wind generation during Japan’s midday trough and release it into the evening peak, smoothing price volatility and easing curtailment. According to Saft, the installation can shift enough clean electricity to power nearly 175 000 homes each day while avoiding close to 400 000 tonnes of CO₂ annually compared with peaker-plant alternatives.

The Soma City facility is the vanguard of a wider multi-gigawatt storage pipeline Gurin is lining up across Asia-Pacific. Chief executive Assaad Razzouk said the company aims to leverage its renewables development playbook—originally honed on solar and wind—to accelerate grid-scale batteries that “unlock the full value of variable generation.”

Japan, meanwhile, has set a target of 40 %–50 % renewables in its electricity mix by 2040 and carbon neutrality by 2050. Government tenders and market reforms now offer dedicated capacity payments for long-duration storage, spurring a rush of projects from domestic utilities and overseas investors alike. If delivered on schedule, Gurin’s BESS will rank among the first large-scale assets to monetise those new revenue streams, reinforcing Fukushima’s post-nuclear pivot toward clean-energy innovation.