Sharp pushes system to better manage electricity usage in U.S.

Sharp Corp., which stopped making solar panels in the U.S. and the U.K., is betting power users in the United States will benefit from a device to store energy and control demand when it's needed the most.

The Osaka-based company introduced an energy management system for industrial and commercial buildings last month in California, where electricity bills are calculated based on peak usage and the amount of electricity actually consumed, according to Takashi Fukushima, who heads the New Business Development Center at Sharp.

The product, called SmartStorage, can cut the amount of electricity billed at the highest capacity required because it forecasts power usage patterns in order to manage so-called peak demand, Fukushima said in an interview in Tokyo last week.