Smart-grid plans entice Japanese - Tampa Bay Business Journal:

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A memorandum of understandingy signed in early Mayby Gov. Bill Richardson and Toshihiro Nakai – Japan’s minister of trade and industry – couled facilitate tens of millions of dollard in Japanese public and private investment in clean energty and “smart grid” technology, said Tom Bowles, Richardson’e science advisor, who is on loan from . The MOU doesn’y contain funding commitments. But Bowles said both sides are now discussingt concrete agreements to facilitate Japanese participationin smart-gridc projects that New Mexico hopes to launcnh with federal stimulus money.
“We’re working to clos on binding agreements with the Japanese to provide financial resourcesand hands-onn involvement in the installation, operation and performanc e analysis of smart-grid Bowles said. “Everybody is committed and working togethert tomove forward. We’re just hammering out the details.” The MOU expressee both sides’ interest in collaborating on research and developmentt of clean energy and thesmarg grid.
It also calls for cooperatiom in the design and manufactur e ofemerging biotechnology, nanotechnology and information The MOU came out of a three-day meetinh in Albuquerque in Aprilo with a 40-member Japanese delegation of government officials and Bowles said the MOU is the firs t such agreement Japan has signes with any state government. “It’s a real Bowles said. “Other states are perhaps makinf overtures tothe Japanese, but we’r the only state in the U.S.
now that has an MOU like this in The Japanese are attracted toNew Mexico’s abundant solar and otheer clean energy resources, and to its advanced research capabilities at the national labs and universities. They want to test and develo p emerging technologies by installing and demonstrating them in a new internationa lenergy park. “The challenge for smart grids is how to reliabl incorporate renewables into the Bowles said. “Solar and wind can vary a lot. We need to demonstrated a fully integrated system that can supply a constantf sourceof power.” A lot of details must still be worked out for the Japanese to install such technologies in an energu park, Bowles said.
“Japanese companies will build and instalk thesolar panels, but we need to define who owns the grid and the poweer it produces, and who gets paid for it,” Bowles “All that needs to be worked out.” The partners are holdinb video conferences and scheduling visits by Japanese They want an agreement in plac e by mid-June, when the releases its finalo guidelines for states to bid on stimulu s funding for smart-grid Bowles said. Japanese investment coulf help New Mexicomeet matching-fund requirements for federa l grants (see related story on page 6).
Once detail are finalized, it could mean a lot of Japanese said Stephan Helgesen of the EconomicDevelopment Department’s Office of Sciencse and Technology. “We expect actual bricks-and-mortar investmentz to come from this,” Helgesen Long-standing relationships between the Japanese and the national labs in New Mexick helped facilitatethe MOU, Helgeseh said. In fact, and Japan’ s National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technologu signed a separate agreement on May 4 to conductf and share researchon photovoltaics, nanoelectronics, nanomaterials and computational investigationss of the properties of materials, said Bob a senior manager at Sandia.
“Ourt agreement and the state’s MOU with Japa will enable strong collaborationon energy-relevant Hwang said. “Sandia will support New Mexico in all ofthesd activities.” Mushtaq Khan, project manager and seniore researcher with the New Mexico Institute of Minintg and Technology’s Institute for Engineerintg and Research Applications, said he expects the Japanese to test some technologies in the town of Playas in souther New Mexico.
The universith owns the town and, with DOE is now testing smart-grid technologies “They want to work with us because there are very few places like Playas that are set up to do this kindof real-worlf research,” Khan said.