OREANDA-NEWS. Hitachi, Ltd., Mizuho Bank, Ltd., Mizuho Information & Research Institute, Inc., and THE Power Grid Solution Ltd. today announced that they have been selected to carry out a feasibility study for a smart community demonstration project in the Republic of Slovenia being run by the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO) as part of its international project for technologies and systems related to energy consumption efficiency.

The demonstration project includes a feasibility study running from December 2014 to September 2015 that will be conducted jointly by Hitachi and the three other companies, with Hitachi acting as the project leader. Based on the results of the feasibility study the project will move to the three-year demonstration phase.

The demonstration project is a joint project between Japan and Slovenia, with participation by local companies and support from the Slovenian government. The feasibility study will include working with Slovenian companies to determine details such as the scope of each technological trial and where they are to be conducted in demonstration phase.

Based on EU directives that include reductions in the emission of greenhouse gases, Slovenia has set targets for producing 25% of its total energy from renewable sources and for improving energy efficiency by 20%, both by 2020.

Meanwhile, given the aging distribution network infrastructure and the increasing demand for electric power due to economic growth, it is anticipated that capital investment in distribution network will increase. Similarly, the likely impact on the distribution network of the installation of large amounts of renewable energy is also creating a need for technology that can provide sophisticated distribution network management.

The demonstration project aims to ensure the stability of the distribution network and to achieve efficient operation by utilizing advanced Japanese technologies in the field of power distribution and ICT, by installing a DMS that can minimize the capital investment needed to provide voltage optimization and distribution network monitoring, with benefits that include measures for dealing with the installation of renewable energy. The project also aims to establish DR solutions to minimize peak demand and realize local production and consumption of energy by utilizing xEMSs that interact with DMS.

The following lists the preliminary activities in the project as well as background information about the four participating companies. Further details of the activities will be determined based on the feasibility study.