Commencement of FY2022 Renewable Energy Aggregation Demonstration Experiment

～Improvement of Imbalance Avoidance and Profitability by New Method of Power Generation Forecast～

December 1, 2022

Next Kraftwerke Toshiba Corporation
Toshiba Energy Systems & Solutions Corporation

KAWASAKI, JAPAN- Toshiba Energy Systems and Solutions (hereinafter “Toshiba ESS”) and Next Kraftwerke Toshiba Corporation (hereinafter “TNK”), with Toshiba ESS as the consortium leader, were selected in June this year for a demonstration project (*1) publicly solicited by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), and have since then been preparing for system development and other activities. From today until January 13^th next year, three common demonstration experiments will be performed.

This demonstration project is being conducted by a consortium (*2) of 14 renewable energy aggregators and 9 demonstration partners with the aim of expanding the use of renewable energy and to foster renewable energy aggregators and renewable energy markets. The consortium will perform three experiments i) accuracy of generation forecast, ii) imbalance (*3) avoidance, and iii) profits from electric power exchange market continued in FY2021.

The experiments will be performed using more than 200 renewable energy generation facilities such as photovoltaic power generation, wind power generation and other types of power generation, with distributed energy resources, such as storage batteries (hereinafter “DERs”).

In the three experiments will be conducted based on the common evaluation method and evaluation index. Furthermore, the power generation balancing group consists of the renewable energy generation facilities of the consortium members in each grid area (*4) of Transmission System Operators in Japan.

For the generation forecast experiment, new forecasting methods will be used and forecast accuracy of each method will be analyzed. Essentially, the consortium members aim to improve the forecast accuracy by increasing the frequency of the generated forecasts, consequently forecasting closer in time to the actual supply and demand.
Moreover, imbalance is avoided experiment, by updating battery operation plans and intraday market trading plans based on the latest forecast, where the consortium members intend to improve the effectiveness of imbalance avoidance.

Finally, for the profitability experiment, the consortium members aspire to improve profitability by creating a storage battery charge/discharge plans that charges when market prices are low and discharges when market prices are high based on forecasted of market prices and the power generation. In this experiment, the new power generation forecasts will be used and the premium unit price of the FIP system will also be taken into account.

In addition to these experiments by each consortium member, additional experiments will be performed by the consortium as a whole. In the additional experiments, the consortium will be regarded as a big virtual aggregator, and the common experiments described above will be conducted using data from more than 200 power generation facilities. In these experiments, we will verify the profitability of aggregators which have large number of renewable energy generation facilities. The forecasting methods described above were developed by the Corporate Research & Development Center of Toshiba Corporation and storage battery operation planning methods were developed by the Infrastructure Systems Research and Development Center of Toshiba Infrastructure Systems & Solutions Corporation.

Hideki Shingai, CEO of TNK and the marketing executive of the renewable energy business unit at Toshiba ESS, commented on this project, “With the results of this demonstration project, the consortium aims to facilitate a stable and efficient power system that utilizes renewable energy and DERs, and to develop the renewable energy aggregation business.”

(*1) The official name of the project is “FY2022 Subsidy for Demonstration Project for Establishing Next-Generation Technologies Using Distributed Energy Resources such as Storage Batteries (Renewable Energy Aggregation Demonstration Project within the Renewable Energy Generation Aggregation Technology Demonstration Project).”

(*2) Consortium member:
Consortium leader
Toshiba Energy Systems & Solutions Corporation

Renewable Aggregators 14 companies
・Urban Energy Corporation
・ENEOS Corporation
・The Kansai Electric Power Co., Inc.
・KANDENKO CO., LTD.
・Kyushu Electric Power Co., Inc.
・Cosmo Eco Power Co., Ltd.
・Japan Renewable Energy Corporation
・The Chugoku Electric Power Co., Inc.
・TEPCO Energy Partner, Inc.
・Nippon Koei Co., Ltd.
・NEC Corporation
・Hokkaido Electric Power Co., Inc.
・Eurus Green Energy Corporation
・Toshiba Energy Systems & Solutions Corporation

Demonstrating collaborators 9 companies
・Idemitsu Kosan Co., Ltd.
・Energia Solution & Service Co.
・Kanden Energy Solution Co., Inc.
・TOKYU LAND CORPORATION
・TOYOTA TSUSHO CORPORATION
・Japan Weather Association
・First Solar Japan G.K.
・Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance Co., Ltd.
・Next Kraftwerke Toshiba Corporation

(*3) Imbalance: The difference between the amount of electricity demanded (to be used) and the amount supplied that occurs when the energy generator is unable to achieve the same amount of electricity as planned and actually used.

(*4) grid area: Form balancing groups for each area under the jurisdiction of the nine utilities in Japan.

Information in the news release, including product prices and specifications, content of services and contact information, is current on the date of the news release , but is subject to change without prior notice.