Monday, September 17, 2012

No. 134: EnerNOC comes to Japan (September 17, 2012)

Business trend:
EnerNOC of the U.S. starts developing the market of demand response in Japan in alliance with Marubeni. The two companies measure power consumption of companies and plants and install smart meters to provide the system called demand response. EnerNOC operates the power saving system using its the server in the U.S., and Marubeni markets the service to Japanese companies. EnerNOC has a total of 12,000 customers worldwide and achieved power saving of 8 million kW equivalent to 8 nuclear power plants around the world. Marubeni will sell saved power it gets from its customers to electric power companies, and Marubeni and customers split the revenue.

As the first project in Japan, the two companies got an order from Kansai Electric Power and constructed a system to control power demand. They provided the system with control devices to about 10 buildings in the Kansai district for free. Hitachi and Toshiba are also in the middle of the substantiative experiment of their demand response systems. Because electric power companies maintain equipment to satisfy the peak demand, there is room to reduce the maintenance cost by decreasing power demand in peak time. 

 Demand response by EnerNOC

Thursday, September 6, 2012

No. 133: Increasing the number of quick charging facilities for e-vehicles to 4,000 nationwide (September 6, 2012)

Business trend:
Nissan, Sumitomo Corp., and JX Nippon Oiland Energy ally to increase the number of quick charging facilities for e-vehicles to 4,000 by 2020. At present, there are 1,300 quick charging facilities in Japan. Because there are 40,000 gas stations in Japan, the industry source reckons increasing quick charging facilities to one tenth of gas stations in number will strongly stimulate the sales of e-vehicles. Japan Charge Network (JCN) financed by Nissan, Sumitomo Corp., Show Shell, and NEC will take the initiative in this project.

JCN has been offering free charging service to spread the rapid charging equipment, but it will make the service chargeable beginning in October. User can get quick charging for 420 yen each time using the special card issued by JCN. The cost to install quick charging equipment is between 4,000,000 and 5,000,000 yen. It needs 8 hours to charge an e-vehicle by a household outlet, while quick charger can finish charging in 30 minutes. The automobile industry estimates that 500,000 EVs can reduce CO2 emissions by 450,000 tons annually. The competition between hybrid car, fuel-cell electric car, and electric car is growing more intense, and no one can predict the future of the competition precisely.    

Looking for a quick charging location inside Tokyo