Mitsubishi Electric Cars to Power Dealerships in Japan

By Daniel Patrascu

15 Apr 2018; At the end of March, Japanese manufacturer Mitsubishi announced it has developed a technology which will allow it to use an Outlander PHEV and its batteries to power the Engie’s office building in Zaandam, The Netherlands. This concept will be expanded soon in Japan as well, Mitsubishi says.

In the city of Saitama in Japan, Mitsubishi has pulled the wraps off a new building called Omiya Hyper Energy Station, a fancy name for a very special showroom. The facility is one of 200 solar-powered such locations Mitsubishi will open in the following two years in the country and the 28th such location that have already begun operating across Japan.

The showroom is all- green, being equipped with solar panels. It can also use an electric vehicle's battery power as an emergency power source. In Saitama, the location is also fitted with its own lithium-ion battery packs to provide power back up to the local electricity grid.

The on-site battery has a capacity of 12kWh and will be used to supply power for recharging electric vehicles in the event of a natural disaster or power outage.

"As our cars have evolved to become EVs and PHEVs, it was a natural progression for showrooms to become charging stations,” said Takashi Hiromatsu, Mitsubishi product strategy manager.

“Now, we can use batteries to store zero emission electricity from roof top solar panels and use it to manage energy demand at the dealership.”

As the carmaker detailed some weeks ago, the vehicle-to-building charging works by connecting a charger to the building's energy supply. The building is fitted with solar panels, and when power than needed is generated, the excess energy is stored in the battery of the electric car.

When the opposite occurs, and the building needs more power, the car’s batteries act as an emergency supply.