ITOCHU Corporation (headquartered in Minato-ku, Tokyo; Keita Ishii, President & COO; hereinafter "ITOCHU") announced today that ITOCHU and ITOCHU Techno-Solutions Corporation (headquartered in Minato-ku, Tokyo; Ichiro Tsuge, President & CEO; hereinafter "CTC") have started a demonstration experiment on the aggregation business that bundles renewable energy, such as solar power and wind power, and provides electricity to consumers and electricity retailers aiming to contribute to the wider use of renewable energy as a part of countermeasures against global warning.

Achieving carbon neutrality, which is aimed at achieving net zero carbon emissions by 2050, requires making renewable energy the main power source, and to implement a decarbonized society. For this purpose, it is essential to advance integration of renewable energy into the electricity market and renewable energy generators are required to appropriately control supply and demand while paying attention to the electric power supply and demand situation and market price.
Moreover, with an increase in power associated with the expiry of the feed-in tariff (FIT) period and the introduction of the feed-in premium (FIP) policy, which calculates the purchase price based on the electricity market price, renewable energy generators will need to be responsible for their own supply and demand controls. As a result, an aggregation business that controls supply and demand on behalf of the energy generators is attracting attention.

ITOCHU and CTC are combining their knowledge of electricity supply and demand control and their expertise in power generation amount forecasting and optimization technologies, ICT and other digital technologies to collaborate on the following demonstration experiment on the aggregation business.

Demonstration experiment of renewable energy aggregation business by ITOCHU and CTC
1. 　Verification of technology to forecast solar power generation and wind power generation amounts
2. 　Study of methods to avoid imbalances between power generation and demand plans and the actual performance.
3. 　Study of methods to optimize the operation of renewable energy supply and demand
4.　 Study of commercialization of the service

As addressed in its next medium-term management plan, "Brand-new Deal 2023," ITOCHU is committed to "enhancing its contribution to and engagement with the SDGs through business activities" and to realizing "business transformation by shifting to a market-oriented perspective." Under these Basic Policies, ITOCHU is proactively working on renewable energy/energy storage device-related business and the electricity trading-related business from the standpoint of consumers. As one of its efforts, ITOCHU addresses the enhancement of the function to adjust electricity supply and demand, which plays a particularly important role after increasing the ratio of renewable energy, and the function to manage risks entailed in trading.

CTC established the 2050 CTC Environmental Declaration on medium to long term environmental targets to eliminate CO2 emissions generated by the CTC Group’s business activities by 2050. It is working towards implementation of sustainable future. In the energy field, CTC has offered technical consulting services for the development of renewable energy business for more than 20 years, and has engaged in the development of technologies related to forecasting wind power and solar power generation output. Since 2011, moreover, it has provided E-PLSM, a cloud-type IoT platform for the integrated control of energy use through data analysis by gathering together the know-how it has accumulated in the energy field.

ITOCHU and CTC started a demonstration experiment associated with the study of this aggregation business in several solar power generation facilities in the Kyushu area from August 1, 2021. Moving forward, the companies will work to expand the scope and region of the demonstration experiment, aiming to contribute to wider use of renewable energy and implementation of a decarbonized society through commercialization of the aggregation business.