Chubu Electric Power Grid Co. Deploys Seven Million Smart Meters with Oracle

Chubu Electric Power Grid Co., Inc. (President & Director, Yaoji Ichikawa) has rolled out seven million smart meters with Oracle Meter Data Management (MDM). This milestone is part of the utility’s larger initiative to achieve 10 million connected residential and commercial properties by 2023.

In 2014, Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) mandated the liberation of the electricity market to provide a stable supply of energy, curb energy charges and create an open retail market that provides choice for customers. Following METI’s decision, Chubu Electric Power Grid Co. decided to implement a smart meter system and plans to roll it out to all customers by 2023.

Chubu Electric Power Grid Co. serves the Chubu region of Japan, including the Aichi, Mie, Gifu, Nagano, and Shizuoka. The utility’s mission is to deliver a stable supply of high quality energy in a safe and reasonable form to deliver on the realization of a low-carbon society.

With the data from its existing smart meters, Chubu Electric Power Grid Co. is better able to visualize energy usage to both improve the efficiency of power generation and power transmission facilities and better serve its customers. For example, the utility can use meter data to see when a customer is reaching their target energy usage and alert them. Likewise, the utility can see how much energy a household has used from its rooftop solar PV and allow customers to divert excess energy to a family member.

With the smart meter data, Chubu Electric Power Grid Co. can enable electricity retailers in the Chubu region by being able to continually refine and improve service including fee calculation and flexible pricing menu proposals. This could include implementing Time of Use (TOU) rates to support the efficient use of electric power by customers while reducing energy load during peak demand times.

“Serving our customers and reducing energy are key goals and ones we can’t achieve without continuous data,” said Mr. Takuya Kajikawa, General Manager of Distribution Control Engineering Group, Chubu Electric Power Grid Co., Inc. “Oracle’s experience in managing large scale smart meter rollouts has been critical in helping us achieve key milestones in this project and in helping utilize smart meter data to improve both operational efficiency and how we engage our customers.”

Based on its proven track record of successful smart meter implementations across the globe, Chubu Electric Power Grid Co. chose Oracle Utilities to kick off its smart meter program in 2013, with pilots starting the following year. Today, Oracle operates as the infrastructure for the company’s smart meter control management system. Most recently, Chubu Electric Power Grid Co. is upgrading to a newer version of Oracle MDM as it moves from seven million to 10 million smart meters.

Chubu Electric Power Grid Co. also uses Oracle Utilities Smart Grid Gateway (SGG) to centralize advanced meter infrastructure (AMI) data and create a common connection among utility applications and smart grid devices. For example, with data flowing to an electricity retailer’s customer information system in regular intervals, they can simplify customer billing. Chubu Electric Power Grid Co. can also submit remote commands to the smart meter to perform operations such as connect/disconnect service to a household or set an energy load limit without deploying a field worker. Additionally, SGG significantly reduces the cost and complexity of introducing new devices, data streams, and business processes.