Mitsubishi goes self-sufficient with new dealership

Thursday, 27 December 2018

While most car manufacturers are striving to make their products (ie; cars) more environmentally friendly (or, at least 'less environmentally damaging'), there are many other areas they can (and, indeed, are) make advances as well, including at a dealership level.

Which is exactly what Mitsubishi Motors and Kyushu Mitsubishi Motors Sales Co., Ltd. are doing with a new showroom that uses renewable energy to be completely self-sufficient – and even provide a stable supply of power to electric vehicles in times of natural disaster.

Not only can a car like the Outlander PHEV be charged at the new dealership, it can also supply electricity to the building in times of high demand.

The Futamatase Dendo Drive Station showroom that opened on the 20th of December in the Fukuoka Prefecture, Kyushu, uses new large capacity solar panels and a storage battery unit to store the power generated.

The solar panels installed at the Futamatase showroom have a 30kW generating capacity, which is equivalent to the showroom's average power consumption, while the battery unit can store 100kWh of electricity, equivalent to 10 days power usage in an average household.

* The return of the L300 van?

* 100-year-old Mitsubishi being re-created as plug-in hybrid**

In addition to being able to supply EV and PHEVs with electricity for charging purposes, the use of a V2H (Vehicle to Home) adaptor allows the system to supply enough electricity to meet the showroom's needs using a combination of power extracted from EV and PHEV batteries and electricity generated by the solar panels.

V2H (also know as V2B or Vehicle to Building) allows the EV's battery to provide power to the building in times of high demand or an emergency. The building will then switch to charging the car at times of low grid demand, or when renewable energy production is at a peak.

To make it even more environmentally friendly, the system specification even provides for the future reuse of EV and PHEV batteries, which can be incorporated into the storage unit.

Mitsubishi says the project will collect a variety of data over the next year to demonstrate the viability of the solar panel and storage battery capacities and help shape its future Dendo Drive Stations that, in addition to standard showroom facilities, feature a presentation and demonstration area where visitors can learn and experience how EVs will play a key role in what the company calls 'the diverse energy grids of the future', as well as highlighting their value in times of natural disaster - EVs have played a key role in transporting people and good in previous emergencies in Japan, when conventional fuel supplies have been severely disrupted.

Since Mitsubishi opened its first Dendo Drive Station in October 2016, it has converted 56 showrooms across Japan and expects to increase this to 200 by 2020. The aim, according to the company is to 'contribute to a more efficient and disaster-resilient energy grid by increasing the number of EVs and PHEVs on the road.'