Jul 12, 2013 ITOCHU Techno-Solutions Corporation
ITOCHU Techno-Solutions Corporation (President & CEO: Satoshi Kikuchi;head office: Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo;hereinafter "CTC") has signed the first agency contract in Japan to sell cpmPlus Energy Manager, a software package that supports the monitoring, forecast and optimization of energy use, with ABB K.K., (President & CEO: Tony Zeitoun;head office: Shibuya-ku, Tokyo;hereinafter "ABB") a leading company in the fields of electric power and automation technologies. Under the agency contract, CTC will start offering a Virtual Power Plant*1 (VPP) solution that expands revenues from the electricity sales business and supports the practical use of surplus electricity.
With the VPP solution, CTC will offer one-stop services, covering the installation of measuring instruments for gathering data, the design and construction of a network, and the development and maintenance of an entire IT system needed for analyzing and applying the collected data using cpmPlus Energy Manager.
CTC aims to increase net sales from this new business to 1 billion yen in three years by offering the VPP solution to customers, including large-scale power users, such as steel, paper-pulp and chemical manufacturing plants, that consider selling and making practical use of surplus electricity generated in-house, and power producers and suppliers (hereinafter "PPS").
More and more companies are entering the power retail business in Japan to sell surplus electricity and realize power interchanges within corporate groups of their affiliation, with their sights locked on the complete liberalization of power retailing and electricity system reforms in the future. Some of the PPS are stepping up their capacity to procure surplus electricity from other manufacturing plants equipped with power generation facilities. Meanwhile, companies that have power generation facilities of their own are studying the practical use of surplus electricity, in addition to enhancing the efficiency of their energy use. As these developments suggest, surplus electricity has become an important theme for companies.
Points regarding cpmPlus Energy Manager
cpmPlus Energy Manager is a software package that supports the monitoring, forecast and optimization of energy use. About 100 steel, paper-pulp, chemical and other manufacturing plants and public utility corporations in areas centered on Europe and North America use this software package for improving energy efficiency, cutting energy cost and increasing revenues from electricity sales. Users can expect to expand their revenues from electricity sales by optimizing energy cost with the introduction of cpmPlus Energy Manager. They can expect the software package to cut energy costs up to 5% and increase revenues from electricity sales through the application of a sales plan automatically calculated from forecasts.
- Monitor the state of energy use, target figures and other data in respective manufacturing processes on a real-time basis, and visualize the state of electricity use, employing measuring instruments installed for each equipment or machine.
- Automatically calculate the optimum state of operation and application for each item of equipment and machine based on power demand forecast on the basis of production and operation plans, and support the enhancement of energy efficiency.
- Improve the accuracy of surplus power forecasts and increase revenues from electricity sales by adjusting power supply and demand more accurately and optimizing them.
- Able to manage multiple bases in an integrated way in response to the need for consolidated energy purchases.
- Able to calculate aggregated figures for power generation capacities and demand forecasts for multiple bases, and expected to increase revenues from electricity sales further through power interchanges and aggregation among bases.
Points regarding CTC's VPP solution
CTC supports the introduction of cpmPlus Energy Manager in Japan. ABB provides technical support to CTC in connection with the introduction of the software package. CTC offers one-stop services, which cover the installation of measuring instruments for gathering data, the design and construction of a network, the development of an entire IT system needed for analyzing and applying the data, and maintenance support. cpmPlus Energy Manager shortens the time needed for network construction by up to 90%, compared with the independent development of a similar system, because its system configuration takes advantage of the strengths of software packages. Customers can also use cpmPlus Energy Manager on CTC's TechnoCUVIC series of cloud platforms, in addition to on-premise systems they built on their own.
CTC has been offering solutions for analyzing and evaluating optimum production processes at manufacturing plants for more than 20 years. In addition, CTC has supported more than 100 cases of business development and administration in the fields of new energy focused on wind power and solar power. With the provision of this service as a turning point, CTC aims to establish a total support system for energy businesses, including electricity sources of the fossil fuel type at power plants and energy-related solutions, and to offer flexible services compatible with domestic energy systems ahead of its competitors.
An image of energy supply and demand forecasts displayed on the screen
Required amounts of electricity and power generation volume are measured on a real-time basis to plan electricity purchases and sales in advance.
The official website of ABB K. K.
- *1 Virtual Power Plant (VPP) is a method in which the capacity for power supply is secured by controlling multiple distributed power sources in an integrated way, instead of setting up large centralized power plants. VPP is aimed at minimizing the cost of securing the power supply capacity. Cases in the United States, where the sale and purchase of electricity has already been liberalized, suggest inexpensive, highly reliable electric power systems may be built by efficiently using power sources distributed close to markets, instead of setting up large power plants that require construction work, for instance by expanding the capacity of transmission cables that connect power plants with markets. As a consequence, investment cost is limited.
Contact Information
ITOCHU Techno-Solutions Corporation, Corporate Communications Dept.
E-mail：press@ctc-g.co.jp
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