Moixa, a leading smart home
battery business, is to launch its GridShare platform in Japan
after signing a strategic partnership with Fortune 500
company ITOCHU Corporation.
Bringing GridShare to Japan
GridShare trades power stored in home smart batteries with
national power grids and allows battery owners to make money from
excess energy either stored from the grid or gained from solar
panels.
It uses artificial intelligence to optimise battery performance
based on patterns of behaviour, weather conditions and market
prices. GridShare can also manage large numbers of devices to
support solar generation, control electric vehicle charging and
deliver services to the electricity grid.
It will be installed in all of ITOCHU’s Smart Star home batteries
from the summer of 2018. Moixa and ITOCHU forecast that the
number of energy storage systems in Japan will increase from
125,000 in 2016 to more than 500,000 in 2020.
The deal also sees ITOCHU invest £5 million in Moixa to help it
fund international expansion.
Partnership is real opportunity to expand
Simon Daniel, Chief Executive of Moixa, said:
ITOCHU is a major player in the global battery market and this
partnership provides a real opportunity for us to expand our
business in Japan and provide GridShare technology to many
global battery companies.
Moixa is looking to expand its GridShare partnerships with
Japanese utilities and electric vehicle manufacturers and is also
planning trials in the US and Europe.
Its own smart battery has been installed in 1,000 homes in the
UK, and the company has delivered more than £6 million of
projects for councils, housing associations, energy utilities and
network operators.
Koji Hasegawa, General Manager of Industrial Chemicals Department
at ITOCHU, said:
Moixa has pioneered battery management, and we are proud to be
investing and working together to target the rapidly growing
energy storage market in Japan.
Moixa’s GridShare will help our customers get more value for
their home batteries and will offer solutions to help our
partners manage Japan’s low-carbon transition.
Technologies developed with funding support
Moixa has developed its technologies through a number of
innovate-UK supported projects over the last 7 years.
These have included research and development into localised
energy systems and low-cost storage of renewable energy, and
studies into the feasibility of smart power systems.
