JD Launches New Industrial IoT Solution for the Energy Sector

China’s largest retailer, JD.com is pushing into the energy sector with a new industrial Internet of Things (IoT) solution. Applying JD’s industrial IoT capabilities to the energy sector, JD is helping the energy sector to modernize and increase efficiency, satisfying consumers’ daily energy needs, while helping businesses on their low-carbon transformation journey.

JD has partnered with State Grid, China’s national power company, to implement its IoT solution in China. This partnership is announced just as JD.com and JD Digits, a leading digital technology company, jointly hold their largest tech event of the year, JD Discovery (JDD) on November 19, in the Shunyi District of Beijing. With a total attendance of over 4,500 people, JDD gathers industry experts from all areas of technology to discuss the most pertinent issues and developments in the industry today.

Through the partnership, JD’s IoT solution will help State Grid build its own smart platform to manage its devices and meters, including electricity meters, power distributors, humidity sensors, temperature sensors and more with its smart IoT platform. Through the implementation of IoT capabilities, State Grid will be able to eliminate data islands, and collect and analyze information about energy usage across different devices in order to take steps to optimize their operations.

JD’s solution addresses several challenges facing the energy industry. This includes overall management of entire systems, and even making adjustments at the granular housing community or resident level. Take electric car charging stations as an example. China is already the world’s largest electric vehicle market, with the country’s electric vehicle fleet expected to swell to 162 million vehicles by 2040, according to forecasts by BloombergNEF. Right now, China’s over 460,000 public charging points beat the U.S.’s 60,000 by roughly an 8:1 ratio. State Grid previously announced plans to build 120,000 public charging stations by 2020. The question then becomes how to optimize the number of electric car charging stations available at a single time and location to ensure that there are enough to satisfy demand but not so many that they are wasteful, inefficient, and unnecessarily costly. Adding JD’s IIoT solution to the equation can provide energy companies like State Grid with valuable tools to analyze and better and address energy needs. Say an electric car driver works nights and doesn’t need to charge their car at rush hour – in this case the system might analyze energy usage fluctuations throughout the day, and notify the driver that he or she can get a discount if they choose to charge at a time when the station is not busy, such as late morning.

The solution can even help optimize energy usage for residents and housing communities, while providing incentives for individual users to reduce their energy usage. AC usage in the summer is case in point. Without seamless, smart integration of temperature sensors, energy meters and other systems, most residents likely do not know that turning their AC down just one degree cooler actually puts a lot of strain on an already strained energy system. With JD’s IIoT capabilities, however, it would be possible to not only analyze energy usage but also to implement a dynamic pricing system that can notify consumers of their energy usage, and incentivize them to make minor adjustments that result in better usage and efficiency for all.

“Most people, from corporations to individuals, are conscious of the urgent need to better manage and reduce energy consumption, but without reliable data and analysis capabilities, it is hard to know how to do so,” said John Zhou, President of IoT at JD.com. “Our IoT platform solution for the energy industry breaks down barriers between devices, companies and even individuals, allowing for a complete picture of energy usage. With this information, we can work with companies like State Grid to take steps in the right direction to increase efficiency, reduce costs, and bring more benefit to society. This is just one example of how we can leverage our capabilities to empower industries beyond the ones JD.com operates in with innovative solutions to address their most pressing challenges.”