KYOCERA Selected to Test ADR System for Improving Electricity Management in Japan

Kyocera Corporation, announced today that it has been selected by the Institute of Applied Energy (IAE) in Japan for a subsidized project to test an advanced automated demand response (ADR) system featuring high speed and accuracy. The project, which began last month, is part of a larger program commenced by Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) this year to promote the development of virtual power plants. With ADR, electricity providers can automatically reduce consumers’ power usage in order to balance supply and demand, thus stabilizing the electricity grid.

Kyocera is testing its ADR system as an electricity aggregator (intermediary company between electricity providers and end users) by controlling equipment such as power generators, air-conditioning equipment and storage systems at multiple supermarkets and manufacturing facilities. Kyocera’s goal is to develop a rapid and precise ADR system to help facilitate Japan’s “negawatt” exchange market planned to open in 2017 — where end users can sell the amount of electricity that they have saved based on power-saving requests as “negawatts.”

Background

Since the Great East Japan Earthquake of March 2011, Japan has sought to reduce reliance on large-scale electricity sources and utilize renewable energy. Due to the significant growth in renewables in recent years, the Japanese government began supporting various projects to help establish technologies for virtual power plants. If they can operate like a single large power plant, integrating renewable power generation, energy storage and demand-side measures such as demand response, then it can be used as a solution to effectively utilize renewable energy. The government program hopes to establish control technologies for virtual power plants exceeding a total of 50MW during a period of five years, and to encourage further implementation of renewable energy.

With the aim of developing technologies to automatically optimize electric power supply and demand, Kyocera has carried out multiple demonstration projects on ADR in Japan. The company participated in a collaborative demonstration with two other companies at 25 sites from October 2014 to March 2015, confirming the control flow applicable to demand response for residential facilities to determine the amount of power saved. A second demonstration project was carried out from April 2015 to March 2016 at 12 sites including supermarkets and manufacturing facilities to validate the effectiveness of an automated system for fast demand response and feasibility of a “negawatt” exchange.