Japanese consortium eyes plant that manages 500 batteries over the internet

This would allow power to be drawn from emergency batteries during a crisis.

A partnership between Tepco Power Grid, Kansai Electric, Eliiy Power and other companies is developing a ‘virtual’ power plant (VPP) that allows the management of scattered batteries over the Internet, Newsbase reports.

The developers are aiming to build systems capable of managing 500 batteries at the same time, and then make them commercially feasible by 2021.

Even Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) aims to have systems capable of handling around 50MW of power in place even earlier than that, as of fiscal 2020.

A VPP would also allow power to be drawn from emergency batteries in a crisis, such as an earthquake that knocked out Hokkaido's main coal plant in September.