Shell became the first foreign company to enter the Japanese electricity market

Royal Dutch Shell Plc, one of the world's largest energy companies, is quietly testing what may be the richest electricity market in the world, but has not yet been exploited by foreign investors: the Japanese electricity market
.

Royal Dutch Shell has set up a small office in Japan and is in the "experimental" phase
of learning to trade electricity and identify industrial customers.
Shell saw an opportunity
to balance the grid when supply and demand for intermittent wind and solar power did not match.

"We think there will be more volatility in the power system in the future," Mark Gainsborough, the company's executive vice president of new energy, told reporters at the company's Singapore office on Wednesday.

”

Shell's foray into Japan's electricity market topped 14 trillion yen ($125 billion
) in sales last year.
It is Japan's first foreign company
to welcome after its first deregulation after decades of local monopolies dominating its electricity market.
It raises more possibilities
for it.
RWE AG, one of Europe's largest power traders, said liberalizing markets could leave traders with risks
that Japanese companies want to hedge.

According to Gainsborough, as more industrial and commercial users begin generating electricity on their premises, opportunities for traders to help balance the grid will expand
.
Japan received about 15 percent of its electricity from renewables, including hydroelectric dams, in the year to March, but it is already facing a situation
where clean power producers must cut production because supply exceeds demand.

As the electricity reform required utilities to sell electricity, spot trading volumes on the Japan Electricity Exchange surged
.
Nearly 30% of the country's electricity was purchased through exchanges in November, up from 1.
5%
before the reform.

Japan is not Shell's first foray into the electricity trading market
.
The company operates in Europe and recently set up a power trading and marketing operation
in Brazil.

Gainsborough said Shell is also the second-largest power trader in the U.
S
.
in terms of sales (in terawatt-hours).
"We already have a significant market share in that market, and one of the things we want to do is expand that capability into new markets
," he said.
At the same time, we will also focus on other markets, especially in the context of
market deregulation.
”