Japan has moved to partially insulate its energy storage sector from overseas battery makers, wary especially of low-cost competition from its neighbor. One of China’s top battery firms, Hithium, says it’s undeterred.

Within three years, Hithium targets as much as 30% of Japan’s market for energy storage batteries and utility-scale BESS. The Xiamen, Fujian province-based maker has set up a 15-person Tokyo office and started pitching both standard 2 MW systems and longer-duration, 8-hour storage BESS. It even offers a chance to preview alternatives to the currently dominant lithium-ion battery chemistry to build future interest.

The Japanese market for energy storage, which was almost entirely made up of pumped hydro stations until recently, has entered the early stages of a genuine boom as officials encourage the introduction of battery energy storage systems (BESS) to bridge the gap between rising intermittent renewables output and 24/7 power demand. Installations of BESS are likely to reach 6 GW or more in operational capacity by the end of this decade, up from around 0.7 GW today, according to Japan NRG estimates.

In an ideal scenario, Japan’s energy planners see domestic battery makers providing most of the units and challenging for orders abroad. In reality, more affordable Chinese products are tempting many BESS developers to turn to firms such as Sungrow, Huawei, and Envision. The first Japanese BESS project to deploy a Hithium battery entered commercial operation late last year.

Over the past year or so, METI and other government entities have tightened rules around state subsidies, making the economics of choosing the battery more complex. Still, Hithium says it’s also prepared to fight for market share on factors other than cost as the manufacturer seeks to leverage its growing global position to win Japan orders.