NEC Develops Real-time Demand Response Technology

BY Editor

NEC Develops Real-time Demand Response Technology – Nov 19, 2013– Tokyo, Japan (Techreleased) – NEC Corporation has developed the world’s first technology that enables direct remote control of a large number of consumer’s stationary batteries, thereby enabling coordinated control of the charge and discharge of individual batteries installed in residences, buildings and other facilities, as well as electric vehicles (EVs).

As the introduction of renewable energy continues to expand, effective responses to the short term variations of electricity supplies associated with renewable energy is becoming an increasingly important issue. This new technology enables the real time control (real-time demand response; hereafter: real-time-DR) of electricity demand and contributes to the realization of a low carbon, sustainable society by promoting the further introduction and growth of renewable energy.

Renewable energies such as solar and wind power have been used widely for creating low-carbon, sustainable energy systems. Renewable energy, however, has the shortcoming in that the generated power fluctuates rapidly in response to changes in weather. For wider use of such energy, a new system capable of real-time balancing of power supply and demand, real-time DR, is deemed necessary.

It has been thought difficult to balance between the rapidly changing power supply and demand by using a large number of consumer’s batteries because this requires complete synchronization of charge/discharge timing, etc. of individual batteries.

This NEC technology enables synchronization of a large number of batteries and permits creation of a new system for balancing power supply and demand.

At the core of the new technology are: (1) “battery state adaptive control software” that applies NEC’s unique algorithm to perform control in accordance with the state of batteries and (2) a “hierarchical hybrid control system” that combines two levels of control – remote control on the cloud side and local control on the battery side. This enables highly reliable real-time DR, which controls distributed batteries in response to changes in the supply-demand balance within less than a second, while synchronizing all batteries, no matter how many. It also allows reliable control even in the case of communication delays and other influences.

These technologies enable the continuous charging and discharging of batteries that belong to a large number of users at optimal timing in response to rapid changes in the balance of power supply and demand, which is a requirement for using renewable energy. They therefore help create a next-generation power system including real-time DR.

NEC will continue its efforts to develop new technologies for smart grids, thereby helping customers create new value and develop advanced social infrastructure.