[Japan] Chugoku Power Electric, Meidensha, and Mazda will Jointly Conduct a Virtual Power Plant Demonstration Project Reusing Electric Vehicle Batteries

On October 17, 2019, Chugoku Electric Power Company (Chugoku EPCo), headquartered in Hiroshima Prefecture, announced that it had partnered with Meidensha, a Tokyo-based generator manufacturer, and Mazda, an automaker based in Hiroshima Prefecture, to develop a stationary energy storage system that reuses Electric Vehicle (EV) batteries. The partners will also conduct a Virtual Power Plant (VPP) Demonstration Project based on the system.

Generally, VPP can integrate and control electricity from EVs and storage batteries in addition to renewable energy sources located in residential households and manufacturing plants. VPPs are expected to provide a wide variety of services related to power systems, such as power demand and supply management for power transmission and distribution companies.

In order to examine the feasibility of reusing EV batteries for VPP energy, the demonstration project will build a VPP system that controls multiple EV batteries along with other distributed energy resources such as solar power generators, EVs and electric water heaters. The project will evaluate the performance of the VPP and the reused batteries’ capacity deterioration characteristics at Chugoku EPCo’s Energia Economic and Technical Research Institute, which is located in Higashihiroshima city in Hiroshima prefecture.[1]

[1] http://www.energia.co.jp/assets/press/2019/p191017-1a.pdf