Toshiba Corporation reportedly has won a major contract for the development and supply of facilities for “verification of a microgrid system on a remote island” from The Okinawa Electric Power Company, Incorporated.

 

According to Toshiba (News - Alert) officials, the verification process will investigate the impact of introducing new energy sources into the existing power system network on Miyako Island, in the south of Okinawa prefecture, and will start in autumn this year. The output power carried by the microgrid and smart grid technologies will be on the largest scale yet promoted in Japan, and the order is the first that Toshiba has secured for a microgrid and smart grid system.

 

Company officials said that as prime contractor for the project, Toshiba will be responsible for all engineering work prior to the start of construction, the procurement of major equipment and components, such as supervisory control system and rechargeable batteries, and the construction of a photovoltaic power generation system with a rated output of 4MW.

 

According to the company officials, the variable output of the photovoltaic cells will be converted to clean AC by integrated power conditioners developed by Toshiba Group. These have a conversion efficiency of 97.5 percent, which places them in the world’s highest class for power conditioners.

 

The system will also be the first to adopt the SCiB (News - Alert), Toshiba’s rechargeable battery, as a part of the electricity storage system. The photovoltaic modules used will be polycrystalline solar panels sourced primarily from Sharp Corporation (News - Alert) and other suppliers.

 

Toshiba plans to promote business expansion of smart grid systems by utilizing its existing global sales channels and expects to achieve an annual business scale of about 100 billion yen ($1.1 billion) by fiscal year 2015.