Our efforts on virtual power plant (VPP) to contribute to the spread of renewable energy

Idemitsu Kosan Co.,Ltd.

Outline

A virtual power plant (VPP) is an operating concept where several types of distributed energy resources at factories and households is remotely controlled and managed by using advanced energy management technology to act as a single power plant and is expected as a new energy system that will enable the creation of supply and demand adjustment capabilities and the further introduction of renewable energy as an alternative to thermal power plants that use fossil fuels.

Our company demonstrates the adjustment of the balance between supply and demand of electricity by utilizing the private power generation at our refinery and the storage battery installed in our oil terminal through participation in the Virtual Power Plant (VPP) construction demonstration project subsidized by Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.

In addition, we are participating in the demonstration project related to the development of VPP services that utilize Electric Vehicles (EV) as the energy resources.

By combining these activities with our solar business and electric power business, Idemitsu Group is working to develop the service that can contribute to the aims of the Challenge Zero initiative.

Description

1. In recent years, the introduction of renewable energy such as solar power generation and wind power generation has made great progress.

The virtual power plant (VPP) is expected as a new energy system that can create the adjustment function to compensate for these output fluctuations, which equivalent to that of a large-scale power plant, by remotely and integrally controlling the distributed energy resources on the demand side.

Idemitsu Group is expanding its business not only the electric power business also the solar cell business (manufacturing and selling solar cells through the subsidiary company “Solar Frontier K.K.”) and is highly interested in this VPP technology expected to contribute to the spread of renewable energy.

We are working to realize a low-carbon society and create new value through potential surveys and studies related to the utilization of our own energy resources such as the private power generation at the refinery and the storage batteries installed in oil terminal through participation in the "Virtual power plant construction demonstration project” subsidized by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry" together with Yokogawa Solution Service Co., Ltd., which is participated as a resource aggregator.

2. In case of the private power generation, it has been demonstrated that the reserve capacity of the large-scale boiler turbine generator (BTG) at the Yamaguchi Refinery of Seibu Oil Co., Ltd., a group company can provide the large amount of power adjustment capacity according to the power supply and demand situation of the grid. In case of the storage battery, we have introduced several hundred kW of industrial storage batteries at two locations, such as our oil depot, Niigata Import Terminal (Niigata City, Niigata Prefecture), and demonstrated that they can provide the characteristics of high speed response and load following. It is also studied that the improvement of economics by multipurpose Utilization of storage batteries such as peak shaving and shifting functions.

3. In addition, from fiscal 2020, the demonstration of VPP that utilize electric vehicles (EVs) owned by customers has been started by participating the “Subsidy System for Demonstration Project of Virtual Power Plant Construction utilizing Energy Resources on the Customer Side” subsidized by Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.

The objective of this demonstration is to develop the EV charging/discharging service which maximize the benefits and satisfaction of customers who have installed EVs and V2H / chargers by applying the market-linked dynamic pricing which charging the EV in the daytime when the amount of power generated by renewable energy is large.

We believe that it not only contributes to the balance between supply and demand of electricity, but also to the spread and expansion of renewable energy by controlling the demand according to the power generation of renewable energy.