On the Start of the Demand Response Service for Households "CO-Ene" - Buying Your Creative Efforts in Using Electricity -

On February 01, 2019, Chubu Electric Power Co., Inc. (headquarters: Higashi-ku, Nagoya-shi; President & Director: Satoru Katsuno; hereinafter, "Chubu Electric Power") and Denso Corporation (headquarters: Showa-cho, Kariya-shi; President & Director: Koji Arima; hereinafter, "Denso") will start the demand response service "CO-Ene" (hereinafter, "this service") that adjusts the region's electricity demand using Eco Cute (Note 1) and central air conditioning in households.

Chubu Electric Power and Denso have jointly developed an energy management system as part of initiatives to provide demand response services and build virtual power plants, and have started demonstrations in Toyota-shi among other areas in January 2018 with the cooperation of the Toyota Housing Corporation (headquarters: Higashi-ku, Nagoya-shi; President & Director: Tadashi Yamashina; hereinafter "Toyota Home").

As part of the customer participation-based transaction services "Korekara Denki" provided by Chubu Electric Power, this service will buy up customers' creative efforts in using electricity, utilizing the jointly developed energy management system.

During the summer when electricity usage is high or when there is a large amount of electricity generated by solar power and Chubu Electric power wants to adjust the balance of demand and supply, operational time for Eco Cute and the temperature for central air conditioning will be automatically adjusted via the Denso HEMS (Note 2) installed in each household.

The customer will be compensated by having a certain amount according to the time duration in which Eco Cute or central air conditioning was controlled deducted from the electricity bill for the month after next.

Customers will be notified of the time that the equipment may be automatically controlled in advance, so that their electricity bill can be slashed without reducing convenience and comfort.

Through this service, Chubu Electric Power and Denso will make power plant operations effective and increase the availability factor of solar power generation in order to contribute to reducing the environmental burden.

We will be broadly promoting this service to customers starting with those living in TOYOTA HOMEs equipped with DENSO's HEMS, Eco Cute, and central air conditioning. Starting with this service, Chubu Electric Power and Denso will gradually unveil new content, adding storage batteries and EV/PHV in the equipment that can be controlled, to allow many more customers to use the service, thus further increasing our load balancing capability for electricity demand.

Both companies will continue to develop the "energy × mobility" service platform and create new services and businesses.

(Note 1) The name "Eco Cute" is used by utilities and water heater manufacturers as a moniker for natural refrigerant CO2 heat pump water heaters.

(Note 2) An acronym for the "Home Energy Management System". A system to visualize energy usage in the household and to control home appliances.