Hitachi, Ltd. (NYSE: HIT) and Panasonic Corporation (NYSE: PC) on Friday announced their intention to cooperate on smart grid initiatives.
The Japanese conglomerates will jointly develop interfaces and work on standardization initiatives with the intention of commercializing and promoting the emergence of community energy management systems (CEMS) and home energy management systems (HEMS). Hitachi has expertise in CEMS technologies, while Panasonic has worked on HEMS technologies.
Smart communities use information and telecommunication technologies to link smart grids with transportation systems, sewage and wastewater treatment facilities and other social infrastructure, buildings, homes and other locations. By facilitating optimal overall control in this way, these systems are meant to minimizing the environmental burden, such as reducing CO2 emissions, and maintaining control on overall social costs.
In order to create these smart communities, all systems ranging from the energy supply side to the energy demand side must be linked. CEMS and HEMS are energy management systems designed specifically for this purpose.
CEMS link and manage the supply side–the main electricity grid beginning from power generation facilities, including wind power, large-scale photovoltaic solar power, and other renewable energy systems–and various demand side systems in detached houses, condominiums, office buildings and elsewhere including such systems as electric vehicle (EV) charging. Meanwhile, HEMS connect home appliances, photovoltaic solar power generators, home-use EV chargers, storage batteries and other facilities and equipment, thereby supporting energy conservation in homes.
Based on the CEMS and HEMS technologies that Hitachi and Panasonic have respectively developed, the two companies will share access methods with a goal to jointly develop international standard interfaces for CEMS and HEMS in projects such as the Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-City project. Hitachi is already providing environmental technologies and solutions for this eco-city project currently under development on the outskirts of Tianjin, China. The two companies will also share market information on CEMS- and HEMS-related businesses.
Hitachi established a Smart City Business Management Division on April 1, 2010. This division is currently involved in field trials and large-scale eco-city projects in Japan and abroad.
Panasonic has already begun developing HEMS in Japan and has begun smart grid pilot testing in Europe under an alliance. On April 1, 2010, the company established the Corporate Division for Promoting Energy Solutions Business.
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