In the aftermath of the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident, the Japanese government embarked upon the largest deregulation of any electricity market worldwide. Through their restructuring they not only want to push away from nuclear energy, but also to promote renewable energy and help modernize the Japanese electric grid by introducing competitive services and flexible resources. The frequency of earthquakes, and the tsunamis they often trigger, in the Japanese archipelago has been a key factor behind the decision to move away from hazardous nuclear power plants. However, creating the physical space for new generation capacity to make up the shortfall is also a problem in the densely populated Asia-Pacific nation. So instead of physical power plants, Japan is launching a number of virtual power plants projects that it hopes will be the answer to its unique electricity challenges. On the December 11th, last week, US based artificial intelligence-driven energy storage service provider Stem Inc, announced […]