STATEMENT
Establishment of the company
What NR-Power Lab
aims for
Since their founding, both NGK Insulators and Ricoh have aimed to achieve a sustainable society, developing various businesses that help solve environmental issues in Japan and abroad.
NR-Power Lab combines the businesses' strengths and aims to become a company that contributes to the realization of a sustainable society by finding solutions through "physical things, digitalization, and service" to the challenge of expanding renewable energy, which is vital to the realization of a decarbonized society.
Specifically, we aim to quickly commercialize the following two services: VPP service, which adjusts the supply and demand balance of power through the integrated control of various energy resources using IoT technology, and digital electricity service, which provides new value to society by utilizing power generation and usage information.
■VPP service
The expansion of renewable energy cannot be promoted simply by increasing the power source for renewable energy. Establishing the coordination capability to support stable renewable energy generation is an urgent task. To spread and expand renewable energy, which is dependent on natural conditions such as weather, flexible coordination capability to control the supply and demand of power is essential.
Without sufficient coordination capability, renewable energy cannot spread or expand, and that increases the risk of events such as massive blackouts. On the other hand, establishing coordination capability is a complex equation with numerous variables involving issues around the system, technology, and infrastructure development as well as cost. It would also be a total loss if greenhouse gas emissions increased for the purpose of coordinating renewable energy.
To expand renewable energy, NR-Power Lab will develop VPP services that can reliably provide sufficient coordination capability at a lower cost and with a minimal burden on the environment.
■Digital electricity service
Electricity is tasteless, odorless, and invisible, but is one of the largest commodities in the world. It is a peculiar product in that, aside from its quality, it makes no difference whether the electricity is from overseas or domestically produced. On the other hand, the way each user uses electricity is quite specific. The ways electricity is generated are also becoming more diverse with the introduction of renewable energy.
NGK Insulators and Ricoh have both worked on demonstrations collecting, analyzing, and utilizing information such as the amount of electricity generated, supplied, and used, the effects of energy saving and decarbonization, and the amount of renewable energy introduced. Currently, they are working with other companies as well to verify the value of solutions such as the "visualization of renewable energy" and "crediting of self-consumed renewable energy." NR-Power Lab builds on this to develop services that contribute to the introduction of renewable energy and the spread of energy-saving/decarbonization solutions.
Yuichi Nakanishi
President
NR-Power Lab Co., Ltd.
OUR PURPOSE
With a strong sense of purpose to "let today's technology lead to solutions and not allow current issues to be put off and dealt with in the future," we overcome our various differences and barriers and combine our strengths.
OUR MISSION
We will achieve early commercialization of the VPP and Digital Electricity services that form the axis for solving the problem and contribute to the expansion of renewable energy and the realization of a sustainable society.
SDGs
Through its business activities, NR-Power Lab will work to solve social issues to achieve Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and realize a sustainable society.
SERVICE
Services NR-Power Lab aims to commercialize
NR-Power Lab uses IoT technology to bring together the facilities/offices associated with NGK Insulators and Ricoh as well as assets owned by customers such as energy storage facilities, load equipment, and power generation facilities.
We aim to achieve a reliable VPP (virtual power plant) by aggregating the unutilized functions of various assets and using the electricity and data aggregated with the VPP to build a business model for digital electricity services with increased added value.
Asset providers are refunded with the asset usage fee, which allows them to maximize the utilization of the unused sections.
We aim to commercialize quickly by conducting component development, operation demonstrations, and economic evaluations during VPP service development and needs explorations, system development, and demonstration evaluations during digital electricity service development.
VPP (virtual power plant) service
The supply and demand balance of power can be adjusted through the integrated control of various energy resources such as the amount of electricity generated by renewable energy sources including solar power, charging/discharging storage batteries, and power consumption by electric vehicles and facilities. This mechanism is called "virtual power plant (VPP)" since it works as if it were a single power plant. To expand renewable energy, we will develop a business model that can reliably provide sufficient "coordination capability" at a lower cost and with minimum burden on the environment.
Digital electricity service
Using the data associated with electricity that can be obtained with digital technology and IoT technology, we will provide an electricity service with more added value. Through solutions such as the introduction of energy-saving equipment and energy management, as well as the operation/maintenance of solar sites, we will work to introduce renewable energy as a way to solve the problem of community and corporate decarbonization.