Japanese firms ABeam Consulting and iGrid are working with Texas-based Innowatts to study the feasibility of a SaaS smart meter data integration and analysis platform.

The goal is to help retail electric power providers in Japan improve profitability, increase business and reduce costs through the use of smart meters.

This validation study aims to develop services that will help retail electricity providers improve their business profitability and transform their whole value chains.

The business environment for electricity retailers in Japan is changing dramatically due to the growing need to introduce renewable energy to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, as well as the rising cost of procuring electricity in response to soaring fossil fuel prices on a global scale. Under these circumstances, strengthening business profitability has become a priority, including more precise management of profitability by customers, review of rate menus to improve profit margins, and development of value-added services.

In addition, it is important to differentiate from competitors by providing value-added services and strengthening customer engagement based on electricity usage and customer attributes, such as proposing the introduction of storage batteries to solar post-fit users and requesting they save electricity when the supply-demand balance is tight.

It is in this context that the use of smart meter data is attracting global attention as a way for retail electricity providers to improve their profitability and efficiency by analysing customer attributes and understanding their needs based on data. This helps improve the accuracy of electricity demand forecasts to reduce electricity procurement risk, and enables providers to offer strategic rate menus based on profitability analysis of different customer clusters.

This joint initiative by the three companies aims to integrate the knowledge and experience of ABeam Consulting, which has long provided consulting services to customers and suppliers in the energy industry, with iGrid’s Real New Energy platform, a distributed and intensive power management system, and Innowatts’ smart grid data enabled energy analytics software with more than 45 million installations globally.

There has been a reduction in system development costs associated with CIS modification, which had been a major barrier to the use of smart meter data by retail electric utilities. The group aims to verify the usefulness of sophisticated profitability analysis based on smart meter data in the Japanese market by providing strategic rate menus, strengthening customer engagement by value-added services such as energy-saving programmes and storage batteries, and improving business profitability.

IGrid’s Real platform uses AI, IoT, cloud and digital technologies that networks renewable energy, mainly solar power, and links it to storage batteries and EVs to circulate renewable energy. By collecting smart meter data from transmission and distribution companies via the Real platform, retail electric utilities can link smart meter data without having to modify their existing CIS systems.

Innowatts’ scalable, configurable and secure SaaS platform leverages AI and machine learning to help energy providers unlock grid edge opportunities, enhance customer value and accelerate their energy transition.

ABeam Consulting will integrate the two companies’ systems and technologies based on the needs of the retail electric power companies, and promote the SaaS smart meter data integration and analysis platform. This seamlessly realises everything from smart meter data linkage to optimal system construction for procurement risk reduction to one-to-one marketing for enhanced customer engagement.

This validation should not only reduce procurement risk in the retail electric utilities’ procurement departments, but also substantiate the benefit to marketing departments in enhancing efficient customer engagement, thereby improving business development in terms of profitability and operational transformation throughout the value chain.

Validation testing will be conducted with the cooperation of several new electric power companies. After the usefulness and feasibility of the system, including compliance with the Personal Data Protection Law and other laws and regulations are confirmed for each company’s business, the aim is to release the system officially in October 2022 as a SaaS smart meter data integration and analysis platform for retail electric power companies in Japan.