ENERES Co., Ltd

ENERES was selected for the “FY2023 Demonstration Project for Further Utilization of Distributed Energy Resources (DER Aggregation Demonstration Project)” operated by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) (executive body / lead organization: Sustainable Open Innovation Initiative).

Together with 18 partner companies, ENERES will conduct a demonstration project to control and aggregate distributed power sources—including low-voltage resources[1] such as residential storage batteries and electric vehicles (EVs)—using IoT technology, with the aim of putting their aggregated output to practical use in supporting a stable power supply.

As part of policies aiming for carbon neutrality, efforts are underway to make renewable energy a main power source. High-voltage resources (such as industrial storage batteries and hybrid power generation systems) and low-voltage resources (such as residential storage batteries and EVs) are expected to serve as balancing and supply capacity to support renewable energy utilization and stable power supply.

However, low-voltage resources pose significant technical challenges for VPP[2] control due to their small individual capacity and the highly variable, hard-to-predict nature of household electricity demand. Furthermore, low-voltage resources are currently not permitted to enter the supply-demand balancing market[3], and under current regulations that require individual registration for every single resource, system development and operations pose significant challenges.

Since FY2016, ENERES has participated in METI’s VPP demonstration projects, conducting demonstrations on the utilization of high- and low-voltage resources for balancing capacity (supply-demand balancing market), supply capacity (Japan Electric Power Exchange), and activation-command resources (capacity market).

Previous demonstrations showed that leveraging 5G + MEC[4] technology improves control accuracy for both high- and low-voltage resources. Furthermore, for low-voltage resources—which had been considered difficult to control—a “group control” method that bundles resources for optimal control proved effective and was demonstrated to be sufficiently feasible for practical use in the aggregation business.

Building on these results, this fiscal year ENERES will focus on operations with a view to the practical application of “group control,” verifying “group management”—a management method to aggregate and register low-voltage resources collectively. ENERES will evaluate the effectiveness of group management and identify effective ways of grouping them, helping to address challenges associated with the participation of low-voltage resources in the supply-demand balancing market.

In this fiscal year’s project, ENERES will control several thousand resources in total, including high-voltage resources (industrial storage batteries, hybrid power generation systems, water electrolyzers) and low-voltage resources (residential storage batteries, EVs, Ene-Farm residential fuel cells). In addition to group management, ENERES will conduct various demonstrations, such as improving control accuracy using 5G + MEC technology, with a view to participating in primary balancing capacity and secondary balancing capacity (2), which have shorter response times and for which trading will begin in the supply-demand balancing market in FY2024 or later.

As a member of the KDDI Group, ENERES aims to build a new power system that contributes to achieving carbon neutrality through its VPP initiatives.

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[1] Low-voltage resources: Power sources with a voltage of 200 V or less and a capacity of less than 50 kW, such as residential storage batteries, EVs, and Ene-Farm residential fuel cells.

[2] VPP (Virtual Power Plant): Aggregating multiple DERs to provide supply or balancing capacity to markets such as the supply-demand balancing market.

[3] Supply-demand balancing market: A market established by general electricity transmission and distribution utilities to procure and operate balancing capacity required to maintain frequency for stable power supply.

[4] 5G + MEC: A communication technology combining 5th generation mobile communication systems with Multi-access Edge Computing (a mainstream edge computing standard) to deliver lower-latency services than conventional methods.