OREANDA-NEWS. Toshiba Corporation today announced its participation  in the Clay Terrace Plug-In Ecosystem Project in the U.S., a demonstration of a plug-in ecosystem that integrates solar photovoltaic power generation with a vehicle charging and battery storage system. The project will start on February 1 in Clay Terrace, a major mall in Carmel, Indiana.

The project was initiated by Energy System Network, an Indiana-based not-for-profit initiative, with the support and participation of Duke Energy, one of the largest electric power companies in the U.S.; Simon Property Group, one of the largest operators of retail malls in the U.S.; Itochu Corporation; one of Japan's leading general trading companies; and Toshiba.

Clay Terrace is a major outdoor lifestyle mall, the ideal home for a project that will demonstrate how photovoltaic power can be stored in a battery-based system and used to power customers' electronic and hybrid vehicles, and also to provide power to the mall at times of peak demand without drawing on the grid. The project is expected to run until July 2014 and provide essential data on the application of the system and its commercial potential.