No. 120: The smart house market grows responding to ever increasing demand for energy-saving houses (2/8) (March 27, 2012)

Business trend of the smart house market (2/8)

Storage battery

With the development of the smart house concept, it will become possible to realize self-support of required electricity, sell surplus electricity, share electricity between house and car, and make life in house more convenient. Accordingly, a device to store electricity will grow indispensable to our daily life.

A research firm conducted interviews with major players of the storage battery market and found that the market would increase 40 times over the level in 2011 to 935 million WH. The market was about 23,000 WH in volume and 15,600,000 yen in value in 2011. Of the total shipments, lithium-ion battery accounted for 75%, lead 24%, and NA 1%. Lead battery accounted for 55% of storage batteries for new residential houses. Portable storage battery accounted for 55.8%, followed by stationary battery with 30.4%. A total of 21 types of stationary battery were shipped in 2011, of which five used lead battery and 16 employed lithium-ion battery. The average cost of WH was 427,000 yen for lead battery and 512,000 yen for lithium-ion battery.

Housing companies are introducing houses equipped with storage battery one after another, it is well expected that the market will grow substantially beginning this year. 

 NEC's storage battery system for smart house

No. 119: The smart house market grows responding to ever increasing demand for energy-saving houses (1/8) (March 25, 2012)

Business trend of the smart house market (1/8)

Photovoltaic generation

Facing power shortage due to the March 11 disaster in the Tohoku district, Japan is required to work out measures for an even more energy-saving society. Supported by IT technology, the smart house market is growing rapidly and expected to reach 12 trillion yen worldwide in 2020. It covers a wide variety of industries including generation, energy-saving equipment, sensors, and management systems. This article is the first of the eight articles on various industrial fields involved in the smart house market. It focuses on the photovoltaic generation business and the relations of companies involved in the business.

According to a research firm, the smart house business excluding housing structure was 2,708 billion yen in 2011 and it will grow to about 12,000 billion yen in 2020 worldwide. Japan is the largest market, accounting for 30% of the world market. The business model of smart house has not been established, but it will ultimately be a smart community that can supply energy for itself even in a time of disaster through the collaboration of such distributed power sources as photovoltaic generation, wind generation, and generation using waste heat and waste materials. In a sense, efforts for faster recovery of the areas devastated by the March 11 disaster facilitate the growth of the smart house business in Japan. 

No. 118: Using food residues and sludges for power generation (March 18, 2012)

Business trend

The idea of utilizing biomass resources like food residues is supported by the Ministry of the Environment thought its policy to stimulate the introduction of nonprocess waste energy. Environment renaissance, an environment business company in Tokyo, will start a project that combines agriculture and methane gas generation using wastes from food plants. The project tries to integrate methane gas generation, apiculture, and feed production through algae culture. It plans to build methane fermenters and algae culture tanks in a 10,000-square-meter area. Food residues and sludges from food plants will be fermented to collect methane gas that will be used for power generation.

In the case that food residues and sludges received are 9,000 tons a year, the projected plant will be able to supply electricity to 200 households, and collect 1,935 tons of composts and 7,222 tons of liquid fertilizers from the fermenters. In addition, the project will address apiculture and culture algae. The project plant is scheduled to start running in 2013. The company is receiving inquiries from other local governments inside Japan and abroad, and planning to expand business in Vietnam and Indonesia in the future.