Idemitsu 出光興產株式會社

Idemitsu Kosan Co.,Ltd. (established in March 1940) is Japan’s second-largest oil company. In response to the liberalization of the Japanese power market, Idemitsu Kosan Co.,Ltd. established a subsidiary, 出光グリーンパワー株式会社, in 2009 to engage in electricity sales (including high-voltage and low-voltage customers). As Japan works towards its goal of becoming a low-carbon society, 出光グリーンパワー is actively working to build and purchase renewable energy sources to power its sales business.

• To monitor the operation of low-voltage distributed energy equipment (smart meters, solar power generation equipment, storage batteries, heat pump water heaters, air conditioners), and related information such as electricity consumption/generation/storage.
• Develop an Energy Management and Remote Control System to consolidate user-side energy device data for electricity consumption and generation forecasting. The system would work with changes in electricity market trading prices to automatically optimize various energy equipment, including the charging and discharging capacity and duration of storage batteries, boiling time of heat pump water heaters, and air-conditioning temperature control.

【Overview】

As extreme weather conditions have become more severe in recent years, the demand for electricity and the accuracy of renewable energy generation predictions have both decreased. In order to balance supply and demand, power suppliers must establish a highly flexible power generation mix that can mitigate the imbalances caused by forecasting errors and reduce the risks associated with electricity retailing business operations.

In the past, electricity providers have been able to construct the optimal power source mix by building their own power plants or dispatching electricity through power wholesale markets. However, this has become difficult due to land acquisition and fuel procurement price volatility, while prices in the electricity wholesale market fluctuate greatly in response to market supply and demand, making the risk of strategy adoption higher.  Therefore, controlling user-side distributed energy resources and incentivizing demand response will be important measures to reduce grid risks.

【Challenges】

The energy device networking architecture cannot be established for data collection and control during the development of the demand response service.

• Provided “Developer Program” solutions that help Idemitsu Kosan Co.,Ltd. achieve the following goals:
  • Provide APIs to help customers obtain energy data and control devices.
  • Create a sandbox environment for developing and testing “Energy Management and Remote Control System”.
• Provided the “Ecogenie+ Smart Living Services” solution to Idemitsu Kosan Co.,Ltd. to help them achieve the following goals:
  • Interconnect NextDrive Energy Gateways and ECHONET Lite energy devices to build an energy Internet of Things system architecture.
  • Create its own brand of home energy management system (HEMS) to reach users.
  • Provide an IoE Suite Ecogenie+ operational management interface to help the client understand how their HEMS is being used by end users.

The client started developing and testing the “Energy Management and Remote Control System” in January 2022. The system was initially only implemented in the Developer Program sandbox environment with employees of Idemitsu Kosan Co.,Ltd. and its affiliates, who own “solar power generation equipment, batteries, heat pump water heaters, and air conditioners” at their homes. In the second half of 2022, the client started promoting the system to end users with its own brand of HEMS.