VietNamNet Bridge – Hitachi and Panasonic Corporation will set up a co-operative relationship in the global smart-community business to help achieve a low-carbon society.

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The companies will jointly develop interfaces and work on standardisation initiatives to promote the emergence of community energy management systems (CEMS) and home energy management systems (HEMS).

Hitachi has long-standing expertise in CEMS technologies, while Panasonic is equally strong in HEMS technologies.

Smart communities are an important element in a sustainable social system for realising a low-carbon society.

To create these communities, all systems ranging from the energy-supply side to the energy-demand side must be linked. CEMS and HEMS are energy-management systems designed for this purpose.

CEMS link and manage the supply side - the main electricity grid beginning from power generation facilities, including wind power, large-scale photo voltaic solar power, and other renewable energy systems - and various demand side systems in detached houses, condominiums, office buildings and elsewhere, including such systems as electric vehicle (EV) charging.

Meanwhile, HEMS connect home appliances, photo voltaic solar power generators, home-use EV chargers, storage batteries and other facilities and equipment, thereby supporting energy conservation in homes. This process of visualising total household energy consumption and achievement of energy-saving targets is then displayed for analysis and evaluation.

The CEMS and HEMS technologies Hitachi and Panasonic have developed will enable them to share access methods and eventually develop international standard interfaces for CEMS and HEMS in projects, such as the Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-City project.

Hitachi is already providing environmental technologies and solutions for this eco-city project currently under development on the outskirts of Tianjin, China. The two companies will also share market information on CEMS – and HEMS-related businesses.

Hitachi has positioned the smart community-related business as a growth engine for expanding social innovation business. It is looking to fuse the group's various technologies, including information and telecommunications, information control and social infrastructure technologies, to provide social infrastructure, such as electricity, gas, heat, transportation, and sewage and waste-water treatment, for creating environmentally friendly cities of the future.

To provide this expertise, Hitachi established a Smart City Business Management Division early this year. This division is currently involved in field trials and large-scale eco-city projects in Japan and overseas.

Panasonic aims to deliver energy solutions by providing products and equipment that save, create and store energy, as well as HEMS and other energy management systems that connect them.

VietNamNet/Viet Nam News