Japan

Panasonic has launched a new home fuel cell system for detached houses, designed to boost solar self-consumption through HEMS‑based smart scheduling. The unit generates electricity and heat from gas, supports demand response, and can supply emergency power during outages.

Kyushu Electric Power Co. will begin a demonstration project on March 1 using remotely controlled home batteries supplied by Sharp Energy Solutions to ease solar curtailment in southern Japan.

Japanese petroleum company Idemitsu Kosan has announced its 2 MW agricultural solar power plant, installed 3.8 meters above a rice paddy, has begun operating. The project features a community-based model that returns a portion of the profits from power generation to the farmers.

Turboden, part of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, has energized what it calls the world’s largest steam-producing heat pump, delivering 12 MWth of superheated steam using low-grade waste heat and CO₂-free electricity with a coefficient of performance 10% above its guaranteed value of 2.

Japanese researchers used supercomputer simulations to reveal how sodium ions form clusters and move within hard carbon anodes, identifying nanopore sizes and transition regions that control diffusion and rate performance in sodium-ion batteries. Their findings offer design guidelines for optimizing hard-carbon anodes to improve energy density, cycling, and commercialization prospects.

A research team from Osaka Metropolitan University have developed a donor-acceptor-donor molecule that can spontaneously self-assemble into nanoscale structures and offer a more stable route to built-in p/n heterojunctions in organic solar cells.

The Japan Photovoltaic Energy Association (JPEA) has released a voluntary reference guide to support adoption of vertical bifacial PV in Japan, outlining design, performance, and compliance considerations for projects in snow-prone, high-latitude, and space-constrained conditions.

SoftBank Group is piloting AI-controlled cellular base stations powered by solar panels and a 3 kW wind turbine to reduce energy use while maintaining service quality. The system stores excess power in batteries and can automatically switch to the grid when needed.

A team of scientists has simulated covering 20% of the Qush-Tepa irrigation canal with PV panels. To this end, the researchers developed a framework, termed an integrated techno-economic-environmental assessment, that can be applied elsewhere. “It explicitly quantifies energy production, water-evaporation reduction, land-use savings, and economic performance within a single analytical structure,” one of the researchers said.

RWE has started commissioning a 100 MW electrolyzer in Germany to supply renewable hydrogen under long-term contracts, while Hydrogen Utopia International and Hydrogen Systems are advancing plans to build waste-to-hydrogen plants in Saudi Arabia.