Press Release

Press Release

Virtual Power Plant Project Starts in Toyota City:Managing Household and Corporate Power Demand to Verify Feasibility of Locally Producing and Consuming Renewable Energy

June 01, 2017
Chubu Electric Power Co.,Inc.

Joining hands with Toyota City, a model environmental city, Chubu Electric Power Co., Inc. (President & Director: Satoru Katsuno), Denso Corporation (President & CEO: Koji Arima), Toyota Motor Corporation (President and Representative Director: Akio Toyoda), and Toyota Turbine and Systems Inc. (Representative: Tetsuro Hitoshi)  have launched a project aimed at building a "Virtual Power Plant" to locally generate and consume renewable energy in Toyota City (hereinafter "the Project"). The Virtual Power Plant regulates household and corporate power demand in line with the supply of electric power generated from renewable energy, having the energy resources of various consumers function as if they were a single power station.

Toyota City has been working to reduce its carbon emissions, adopting an action plan to cut CO2 by 30% before 2030 compared with 1990 levels. Together with private companies, the City established the Toyota City Connected Society Verification Promotion Council (hereinafter "the Council") in October 2016. One of the Council's agendas is to locally generate and consume renewable energy in Toyota City.

The project will use energy management to adjust power demand in step with Toyota City's wind, solar, biomass, and other renewable energy-based power supply that is subject to weather conditions, in turn verifying if it is feasible to locally generate and consume zero-carbon renewable energy.

More specifically, the Project will adjust power demand in line with the supply of power generated from renewable energy. That will be achieved by using information and communication technology (ICT) to link plug-in hybrid cars (PHV), heat pump water heaters, batteries, and other devices households and companies own and controlling the time needed in charging PHVs or the charging and discharging of batteries. To build an energy infrastructure foundation that contributes to such efficient uses of energy, the four companies will develop the Virtual Power Plant: an innovative and next-generation energy management system that uses ICT.

Moreover, electric power generated by the Virtual Power Plant will be supplied to general electric power distributors to verify whether it is possible to develop new operations that contribute to stabilizing electric power systems.

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