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May 10, 2011
Nippon Telegraph and Telephone West Corporation
OMRON Corporation


NTT West and OMRON establish Joint Venture Company “NTT SMILE ENERGY Inc.” offer Energy-Saving Support Services for Households



Nippon Telegraph and Telephone West Corporation (“NTT West”; HQ : Osaka City, Japan; President: Shinichi Otake) and OMRON Corporation (“OMRON”; HQ: Kyoto City, Japan; President: Hisao Sakuta) have agreed to establish joint venture company NTT SMILE ENERGY Inc. (“NTT Smile Energy”) to offer energy-saving support services for households in the environmental and energy fields. NTT Smile Energy will be established on June 1, 2011 and will begin operations in July.

NTT Smile Energy will enable residents of households to see how much power they are consuming and how much power is being generated by solar panels. NTT Smile Energy will also offer various services supporting energy saving and reducing carbon dioxide emissions by households. Specifically, this will include the use of sensors to measure household power consumption and power generation, display amount of consumption and generation of power or as electric charges on display terminals and a dedicated website, as well as support for other eco-friendly life such as the virtual accumulation of energy-saving effects as “eco-savings” and the provision of mechanisms for participating in, and contributing to, environmental preservation activities in accordance with the amount of carbon dioxide reductions achieved.

NTT Smile Energy will leverage the know-how and strengths of both companies, including the network technologies of NTT West and advanced sensing and control technologies of OMRON, and by coordinating communications and control, will strive to expand services that support energy savings and encourage the use of renewable energy.


1. Background to Establishment of the Joint Venture Company
In recent years, global environmental issues have become increasingly serious and the importance of effort to resolve these issues has been emphasized. For companies, the charging for carbon dioxide emissions and the adoption of strengthened laws and regulations are expected, as further reductions of carbon dioxide emissions are needed. Among households and consumers, too, awareness of environmental issues continues to rise, as seen, for example, in widespread use of energy-saving appliances and solar panels.

Under these circumstances, NTT West and OMRON will establish NTT Smile Energy to support environmental awareness throughout society through the provision of environmental and energy-saving support services to households after offer energy visualization services to businesses.


2. Overview of the Joint Venture
(1) Name: NTT SMILE ENERGY Inc.
(2) Date of establishment: June 1, 2011
(3) Start-up of operations: July 2011 (planned)
(4) Location of head offices: Osaka City, Osaka Prefecture,Japan
(5) Capitalization: ¥450 million
(6) Shareholders: NTT West 66%, OMRON 34%
(7) President: Hiroaki Taniguchi (planned)


3. Main Business
(1)  Offer of household energy visualization services and sale of devices with simple
energy sensors, display terminals, and a dedicated website, NTT Smile Energy will enable households to see how much power they are consuming and how much power is being generated by solar panels, and will offer services and devices that support energy savings. Energy consumption and power generation data will be collected on cloud-based servers, enabling users to view their current pace of energy consumption on display terminals and PCs.

(2)  Valuation of carbon dioxide reductions and environmental preservation activities
NTT Smile Energy will conduct environmental conservation activities (including returns to service users) by making use of domestic carbon credits (emissions rights) created using a method1 approved by the Domestic Credit Certification Committee2. (With this method, household power consumption reductions achieved through the use of solar panels will be calculated using simple power sensors and counted as reductions in carbon dioxide emissions achieved by renewable energy.)

1 A committee established to operate the domestic credit systems that can be used to achieve targets of the Kyoto Protocol.
2 Results of the 18th meeting of the Domestic Credit Certification Committee.

(3) Solar panel monitoring services
NTT Smile Energy will offer monitoring services (valuation of power generated using weather data) using IP-based networks and sensors to monitor power generated by household solar panels.

Field trials have been conducted at approximately 200 households in the Kansai region since February 2011 for future offer of the above services. (See attachment.)


4. Future Plans
NTT Smile Energy will collaborate not only with NTT West and OMRON, but will also form alliances with various other companies to offer services and business that use communications and control technologies to support energy-saving and promote the use of renewable energy, thereby proposing new, eco-friendly life.



Attachment:  Overview of Field Trials for Household Power Visualization Services



For inquiries contact from press:
Kozuru, Yaetsu, or Nakamura
New Business Division
Service Creation Department
NTT West
E-mail: nttse.eng@ml.hq.west.ntt.co.jp

Suzuki
Business Planning Department
Environmental Solutions Business HQ
OMRON

No. 11-167-1


The information contained in this press release is current as of the time of its announcement. The latest information and content may differ.

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