Accelerating Japan’s Renewable Energy Adoption: An Inside Look at Enegaeru (Energy Simulation Suite)

Accelerating Japan’s Renewable Energy Adoption: An Inside Look at Enegaeru (Energy Simulation Suite)

Introduction: Japan’s Renewable Energy Puzzle

Japan faces a critical juncture in its push toward carbon neutrality by 2050. Although interest in solar PV, battery storage, and electric vehicles (EVs) is at an all-time high, various bottlenecks have slowed broader adoption. Prospective adopters—whether businesses or homeowners—often struggle to understand the true economic benefits of renewable installations. In fact, surveys show that a majority of hesitant companies worry whether the investment will pay off; unclear ROI and payback periods have been identified as a primary barrier to going solar. Likewise, many consumers doubt the credibility of savings projections. Over 40% of corporate decision-makers reported they “could not fully imagine the economic effect” even when shown a solar/storage simulation, yet over half said if a trustworthy simulation had been provided, they would have been inclined to invest. This trust gap underscores a crucial challenge: delivering transparent, reliable analysis of renewable energy economics.

Compounding the issue is the complexity of Japan’s energy landscape. The country’s electricity market boasts 10 legacy utilities plus over 100 new retailers, offering thousands of tariff plans with varying rates, time-of-use pricing, and regional rules. Manually tracking these ~3,000 electricity rate plans and identifying the optimal one for a customer is impractical. The same complexity applies to Japan’s dense patchwork of government incentives—around 2,000 national and local renewable energy subsidies—critical to project viability but laborious to monitor and apply. For sales teams at solar installers or EV charger providers, gathering up-to-date tariff and subsidy information has become a significant burden.

Equally pressing is a resource and skills shortage in the industry. Renewable energy providers are inundated with demand for solar, batteries, and EV charging solutions (spurred by surging electricity prices and new regulations like Tokyo’s solar mandate for new homes), yet they often lack sufficient trained staff to design and propose systems. Approximately 90% of renewable installation firms say they suffer from a shortage of technical professionals, and 80% admit that the heavy workload of preparing proposals delays their customer response. In emerging fields like EV charging and vehicle-to-home (V2H) integration, over 92% of companies feel significant challenges in the sales/proposal process, with over 80% acknowledging internal skill gaps and expressing interest in outsourcing tasks to specialists. The result is an industry “stuck in first gear,” with immense interest from customers but bottlenecks in converting that interest into deployed projects.

However, these challenges are now being met with innovative solutions. Kokusai Kogyo Co. – a Japanese firm with a rich history in geospatial and environmental consulting – has developed “Enegaeru”, a cloud-based economic impact simulator suite that is tackling Japan’s renewable energy adoption puzzle head-on. Enegaeru (a name playing on energy and the Japanese word for “frog” or “to change”) is designed to “make difficult energy diagnosis easy” – in other words, to demystify the economics of solar PV, batteries, and EV integration for both sellers and buyers. Through a combination of sophisticated software (available as both SaaS and API) and data-driven services, Enegaeru enables anyone – even non-engineers – to rapidly generate accurate, customized proposals showing the costs, savings, ROI, and environmental benefits of renewable energy systems. This end-to-end platform is helping Japan’s renewable industry overcome key hurdles: speeding up proposal workflows, instilling confidence via reliable data (even offering guaranteed results), and bridging knowledge gaps within sales teams.

Backed by world-class analytics and continuously updated databases, Enegaeru has quickly become Japan’s go-to solution for economic simulation of clean energy. As of today it’s adopted by over 700 companies, including major electric utilities, gas suppliers, renowned solar module and battery manufacturers, top engineering/procurement/construction (EPC) firms, regional banks, and government agencies. With a dominant market share in this domain, EnEgaeru’s impact is evident: users report dramatically higher proposal success rates, faster sales cycles, and improved customer trust. In this article, we provide a comprehensive look at all Enegaeru products and services, explain how they address Japan’s renewable energy market challenges, and highlight success stories. For overseas readers – whether global energy companies eyeing Japan, investors, or policymakers – this serves as an insightful case study of how targeted digital innovation can unlock a market’s renewable potential. (Note: Enegaeru currently focuses on Japan, but the team welcomes international partnerships and collaborations as they look toward overseas expansion. Interested parties can reach out via the Enegaeru contact form.)

Japan’s Renewable Energy Bottlenecks – and How Enegaeru Addresses Them

Before diving into the product specifics, it’s worth summarizing the core problems in Japan’s renewable adoption that Enegaeru was built to solve:

• 1. Uncertain ROI & Customer Skepticism: Solar and battery projects live or die by their economics. Yet many customers, especially businesses, are unconvinced by sales pitches that lack solid data. The fear of non-payback is pervasive. Enegaeru tackles this by providing rigorous, transparent financial analysis for each project. Its simulations output 20+ year cashflow projections, internal rate of return (IRR), and payback period, all tailored to the customer’s specific situation (system size, costs, financing, etc.). Crucially, what used to take an engineer several days of spreadsheet work can now be done in minutes – meaning sales reps can hand a prospect a customized ROI report on the same day as an initial meeting, not weeks later. This speed and detail instill confidence. In fact, being able to quickly show long-term savings and payback is now seen as the critical success factor in selling self-consumption solar to Japanese businesses. By removing uncertainty, EnEgaeru turns skeptical prospects into informed decision-makers.

• 2. Complex Electricity Pricing & Optimization: Japan’s deregulated power market offers consumers a bewildering choice of rate plans. The optimal plan for a customer with solar+storage or an EV charger may not be their current one. Manually comparing tariffs is tedious and prone to error. Enegaeru includes an extensive electricity tariff database – covering 100+ retailers and over 3,000 rate plans – updated monthly. Its simulation engine can automatically identify the best plan (or charging schedule, in the case of EVs) for maximizing savings. For example, the software can show a homeowner with an EV how switching to a time-of-use evening plan and charging the car at night would cut their annual bill. It even accounts for Japan’s fuel cost adjustments and utility surcharges. This capability was so unique that when Panasonic developed a smart app to optimize home EV charging, they integrated Enegaeru’s API rather than reinvent the wheel; maintaining accurate pricing for all utilities in-house would have been an “enormous cost and effort,” so Enegaeru’s high-precision rate data was essential. Thanks to Enegaeru, Panasonic’s app can automatically schedule car charging during the cheapest hours and suggest the most cost-effective electricity plan, directly contributing to lower home energy bills.

• 3. Burdensome Subsidy & Policy Navigation: To promote renewable adoption, Japanese national and local governments collectively offer thousands of subsidy programs (grants, rebates, tax breaks). These programs are valuable – often tipping a project’s economics from marginal to attractive – but they change frequently and differ by region. Many solar installers complained of the huge effort to track and apply relevant subsidies for each customer. Enegaeru resolves this with an integrated “Smart Energy Subsidy” database and API, covering ~2,000 subsidy schemes across Japan. Users can instantly pull up all applicable incentives by location and system type, ensuring no free money is left on the table. Enegaeru even launched a free in-app subsidy search tool for its subscribers, so that sales teams can find up-to-date local subsidy info in seconds. By automating subsidy lookup and calculations, the platform not only saves hours of research per proposal, but also boosts proposal appeal (as it shows customers how much government support they can receive). This addresses the common pain point echoed by installers that manual subsidy research was a major drain on time, now alleviated through digital means.

• 4. Slow, Labor-Intensive Proposal Process: Traditionally, crafting a solar/storage proposal in Japan meant a skilled engineer spending days on load analysis, system design, Excel calculations, and report writing. During busy periods, backlogs grew and customers waited weeks for proposals – by which time interest could wane. The industry norm has been suboptimal: one survey found 88% of solar sales companies felt their proposal workflow was burdened with inefficiencies, with site surveys and endless spreadsheet tweaking cited as top culprits. Enegaeru’s cloud software automates and accelerates this workflow end-to-end. Simulation scenarios that once took 2–3 hours in Excel now run in ~5 minutes. The software can ingest a customer’s 30-minute electricity demand data (or even generate a realistic load curve from basic inputs like building type and size), then swiftly simulate multiple system configurations. It outputs a professional, graph-rich report with all key metrics (self-consumption rate, CO₂ reduction, annual savings, etc.) in about 10 minutes. One prominent solar EPC, XSOL, integrated Enegaeru’s engine into their internal tool “XSOL NAVI” and saw dramatic improvements: proposal prep time plummeted from up to 3 hours to under 10 minutes per case, enabling them to handle far more clients with the same staff. Moreover, because Enegaeru’s API keeps utility rates updated automatically, XSOL eliminated manual data entry errors and can be confident each proposal uses accurate, current tariffs across high, low, and even spot-market pricing. Faster turnaround and accuracy directly translate to higher proposal win rates.

• 5. Trust and Performance Assurance: Even with good data, some customers remain wary – “What if the savings you predict don’t materialize?” is a common refrain. This skepticism, if unaddressed, can derail deals; indeed 84% of renewable energy salespeople in Japan have had customers doubt the credibility or precision of simulation results. To tackle this head-on, Kokusai Kogyo went a step beyond software: it introduced an industry-first “Simulation Guarantee” in partnership with a third-party warranty firm. In essence, this optional service guarantees a portion of the projected energy output or cost savings – if the system underperforms significantly versus the Enegaeru forecast, the shortfall is compensated. This guarantee effectively puts teeth behind the simulation, giving customers peace of mind that the numbers are not just optimistic guesses. Over 80% of Japanese solar sales reps believe having a backed-by-data guarantee would boost their customers’ confidence and close rates. Early signs show offering a simulation guarantee can increase consumer willingness to adopt; in one survey ~70% of homeowners said they’d be more inclined to install solar if such a result assurance were in place. By committing to performance, Enegaeru further bridges the trust gap and differentiates solution providers who use it.

• 6. Workforce Skill Gaps & Capacity Constraints: As noted, the renewable sector is straining under labor shortages – not only installers, but also designers and sales engineers. Training new staff is time-consuming, and inexperienced team members often struggle with complex system calculations or may shy away from pitching technologies (like batteries or V2H) they are less familiar with. Enegaeru significantly lowers the skill barrier. Its user-friendly interface and automated calculations mean even a novice salesperson can generate a detailed proposal without needing an electrical engineering background. This democratization of expertise is yielding concrete results. For example, ELJ Solar, Japan’s largest residential solar retailer, deployed Enegaeru for all its salespeople and saw its monthly proposal volume soar to ~1,000, with a stunning 60% close rate – a jump attributed to the tool’s credibility and ease-of-use in customer engagements. Similarly, regional installer Sunlife Corp. achieved near 100% conversion on proposals after equipping their team with Enegaeru’s industrial solution; they went from 10–20 proposals a month to ~50, almost all of which turned into orders. By standardizing and simplifying the proposal process, Enegaeru helps scale organizations’ sales capacity (junior reps can perform like veterans armed with data) and ensures consistency in quality. For more complex tasks that still require expert handling – detailed system design, subsidy paperwork, etc. – Kokusai Kogyo now even offers a “BPO/BPaaS” (Business Process Outsourcing) service: companies can outsource parts or all of their proposal workflow to an Enegaeru expert team on-demand. This is incredibly flexible – e.g., a contractor can simply send a customer’s info via a web portal and receive a full proposal packet the next day, for a fee of roughly ¥10,000 (≒$70) per case. The BPO team can also handle PV system layout drawings, detailed engineering, subsidy applications, and even provide staff training sessions. In a survey, 85% of industry players said outsourcing heavy proposal workload would improve their business, and EnEgaeru’s new hybrid BPaaS model now makes that possible on a plug-and-play basis. Essentially, Enegaeru not only provides great software tools (technology) but also offers human expertise-as-a-service to fill any remaining gaps (people), thereby fully closing the loop on skill and resource shortages.

By addressing these six problem areas – ROI transparency, tariff optimization, incentive integration, speed and accuracy of proposals, customer trust, and workforce enablement – Enegaeru functions as a holistic solution for accelerating renewable energy deployment in Japan. It aligns perfectly with the market’s needs: faster sales cycles, higher proposal win rates, and more informed, satisfied customers. Next, let’s explore the specific products under the EnEgaeru umbrella and the role each plays in this ecosystem.

The EnEgaeru Product Suite: Tools Empowering the Energy Transition

Enegaeru’s offerings can be thought of in several layers, each targeting a segment of the market or a specific use-case, but all built on the same powerful core engine and data infrastructure. Here’s an overview of the key products and services:

1. Enegaeru ASP (Residential Solar & Storage Simulator)

The “ASP” version of Enegaeru is a cloud-based SaaS application focused on home-scale solar PV and battery storage (the acronym ASP historically stood for Application Service Provider). Accessible via a web browser, Enegaeru ASP allows residential solar sales consultants to input a homeowner’s details – e.g., location, roof size, electricity bill, whether they have or plan to get an EV, etc. – and in minutes generate a personalized proposal. The simulation covers scenarios like solar-only, solar + battery, battery retrofit for existing solar, with or without EV and V2H, etc., giving users flexibility to compare options. Notably, Enegaeru ASP integrates the vast database of low-voltage electricity tariffs (including all 10 regional utilities and 100+ new retailers) via simple dropdown selection, as well as up-to-date feed-in tariffs or net-metering rates if applicable. It can also account for future electricity inflation rates or PV/battery degradation by simple percentage inputs, making the forecasts more realistic.

One of the standout features is its support for EVs and Vehicle-to-Home: Enegaeru ASP was one of the first tools in Japan to combine rooftop solar, stationary home batteries, and an EV + bi-directional charger into a single economic simulation. As EV adoption grows (and with V2H technology enabling cars to power homes during peak times or outages), this “solar+battery+EV” combo is increasingly relevant. However, calculating its benefits manually is complex – one must consider gasoline savings from driving on solar power, time-of-use rates for charging, the battery cycling between car and home, etc. EnEgaeru handles this elegantly. In fact, the company launched a dedicated module called “Enegaeru EV・V2H” to address this, initially in beta and now a paid add-on. The EV/V2H simulator incorporates a library of 57 popular EV models from 20 manufacturers (with their battery sizes and efficiencies) so users can simply pick the car model and have its energy profile accounted for. It automatically calculates the combined gasoline cost savings + electricity bill savings + any solar feed-in revenue over a typical month/year, showing how an EV effectively serves as a “moving battery” that can reduce grid purchases. It even lets the user test different yearly mileage or driving patterns, and for ultimate accuracy, there’s an option to integrate actual driving data (telematics): through a partnership with Pioneer’s cloud platform, real car GPS data can be used to refine the EV’s charging/discharging simulation. All these results are compiled into a slick Excel report (with graphs of, say, battery state-of-charge and home load profiles) that a salesperson can present to the homeowner, typically within 5 minutes of data entry.

Enegaeru ASP is offered on a subscription basis to installers and vendors. Many large housing companies and solar retailers have adopted it to standardize their proposal process. For instance, as mentioned earlier, ELJ Solar (Japan’s #1 solar sales company) equipped their entire nationwide salesforce with Enegaeru ASP and saw significant boosts in productivity and closing – achieving ~60% sales conversion out of ~1000 monthly consultations. Front-line salespeople appreciate how it simplifies technical concepts (like showing in simple terms how a battery provides backup power – Enegaeru even outputs an illustration of how long various appliances can run on the battery during a blackout). This turns what used to be a confusing upsell into a compelling story for customers, improving attachment rates of batteries and V2H devices. In summary, Enegaeru ASP streamlines residential renewable energy sales, compressing what was once days of analysis into a few clicks, and packaging it in a way that homeowners can easily grasp.

(Pricing note: Enegaeru ASP is typically bundled in plans; for example, the EV/V2H module has been offered at an initial fee of ¥300k and about ¥150k per month for 5 users, often with a free 30-day trial. Standard residential ASP pricing is similar, often structured by number of users. The ROI for clients is quickly realized if even a couple more sales close each month thanks to the tool’s effectiveness.)

2. EnEgaeru Biz (Industrial & Commercial PV/Battery Simulator)

“Enegaeru Biz” is the enterprise-grade counterpart to ASP, tailored for industrial and commercial (C&I) scale self-consumption solar and storage projects. Launched in 2022 to meet growing demand from factories, office buildings, schools, and municipalities, Enegaeru Biz can handle both low-voltage (under 50 kW) and high-voltage (up to multi-MW) systems. Users of Biz are typically solar EPCs, engineering firms, or equipment distributors who design projects for factories, warehouses, or public facilities aiming to cut their electricity bills and CO₂ footprint.

What sets Enegaeru Biz apart is its capability to work with detailed load data and complex rate structures that larger facilities have. For instance, Japan’s high-voltage consumers are billed not just on kWh energy but also on peak demand (kW) charges and sometimes power factor or peak shaving incentives. Enegaeru Biz allows users to import 30-minute interval demand data (in CSV format) from the facility’s smart meter or billing records. The software then simulates how a proposed solar (and optionally battery) system would interact with that demand – reducing daytime draw, shaving peaks, and possibly shifting usage. If actual interval data is unavailable (e.g., early in the sales process), the tool provides industry-specific load curve templates or can generate a synthetic demand profile just by inputting the facility type (factory, school, supermarket, etc.) and floor area. Impressively, Enegaeru Biz added a “virtual demand generation” feature that produces a realistic 24/7 load profile in ~30 seconds based on those inputs, which greatly speeds up preliminary proposals. This means a salesperson can walk into a first meeting with a medium-sized factory and, even without prior data, walk out with a solid estimated savings analysis – a huge competitive edge when initial responsiveness can win deals.

Like the residential tool, Biz integrates the comprehensive tariff database – covering high-voltage and extra-high-voltage utility tariffs from the 10 regional utilities, as well as any registered PPS (power producer & supplier) plans that might apply. In total, it supports the same 100+ retailers and 3,000+ plan database, including special rates for commercial users. If a user has negotiated a custom rate with a utility, they can input it as well (the system allows custom rate table entries). The simulator then computes the facility’s energy cost with and without the PV/battery system, taking into account reduction in kWh charges, reduction in demand peaks (if a battery is used for peak shaving), and any surplus energy sold. It also lets the user model degradation, O&M costs, and future electricity escalation, which are critical for long-term ROI projections in commercial projects. The outcome is a rich Excel report including financial metrics like NPV and IRR, annual cash flows, and sensitivity analyses. Enegaeru Biz can produce these reports in about 10 minutes even for large systems (it notes “5 minutes” for the core simulation plus a few minutes for report graphics), which is a radical improvement over the days or weeks engineers used to spend per proposal.

As with ASP, Enegaeru Biz is delivered as a subscription SaaS. Its impact on sales efficiency has been profound. Consider Sunlife Corporation, a solar integrator focusing on the industrial segment: after adopting Enegaeru Biz, they were able to increase their proposal volume to ~50 projects per month (from ~10) and achieved nearly a 100% proposal-to-contract conversion, effectively closing almost every proposal they put in front of clients. They attribute this to the credibility and depth of Enegaeru’s analysis – clients trust the numbers and appreciate the quick turnaround, so much so that competitors’ simpler quotes fall short by comparison. Another adopter, Denkosha (an electrical contractor), reported that before Enegaeru they struggled with a simulator that few of their salespeople could actually use (and it couldn’t handle batteries), causing long delays as they waited for technical staff to assist. After switching to Enegaeru Biz, even their non-technical salespeople could generate battery-inclusive proposals in a half-day instead of two weeks, speeding up their sales cycle dramatically and allowing them to successfully start selling storage solutions whereas before they avoided them. These examples underscore how Enegaeru Biz helps standardize and elevate the quality of commercial renewable proposals across an organization, making it possible for every sales rep to produce a top-tier analysis without needing an energy analyst on hand.

Enegaeru Biz also has an API option (more on the API next) and can be white-labeled. For example, some large trading companies and panel manufacturers have integrated Enegaeru Biz’s engine into their own proprietary software or customer-facing web portals. The pricing for Biz is tiered by user count; a typical package might be ~¥300k initial and ¥180k/month for 10 users on the Light Plan (pricing can vary based on features and support levels). Given that one successful mid-sized commercial installation can yield millions of yen in profit, the ROI for subscribing is easily justified by a few extra wins per year attributed to the software.

3. EnEgaeru API & Web Simulation Solutions

Under the hood, both ASP and Biz are powered by EnEgaeru’s core calculation engine, and Kokusai Kogyo has made this engine accessible via a comprehensive API (Application Programming Interface). The Enegaeru API allows organizations to integrate the simulation capabilities into their own IT systems, apps, or websites. This has opened up a host of new possibilities and partnerships.

The API has been significantly upgraded in March 2025 to encompass all use-cases in one package: residential, industrial, battery, EV/V2H, tariff lookup, and subsidy lookup. With this update, an external app can, for instance, call an endpoint to simulate a home PV+battery+EV scenario or call a different endpoint to simulate a 500 kW factory PV system with a specific high-voltage tariff – all using one unified API service. The update also improved data freshness and coverage: tariff data across ~100 companies is now auto-updated monthly, including complex time-of-use and even wholesale market-indexed plans, and the API offers endpoints for pure data retrieval as well (e.g., to simply query the latest unit price of a given electricity plan, or to retrieve all subsidy info for a region). In short, Enegaeru API has evolved into a full-fledged “Renewable Introduction Acceleration API,” as the company describes it, aimed at enabling any third-party to leverage Japan’s richest energy data and simulation logic in their solutions.

Who is using the API? Several prominent examples illustrate its value:

• Web-based Customer Simulators: Solar manufacturers and local governments have used Enegaeru API to quickly stand up their own branded web calculators. One product, “Hatsuden Dr.” (meaning “Generation Doctor”), was launched in 2023 as a turnkey web simulator for residential solar+battery, built jointly by Kokusai Kogyo and a partner web agency. It allows any user on a website to input just their postal code (to get location-specific irradiance and tariffs) and minimal info, and then see the estimated economic effect of installing solar (with or without storage). Hatsuden Dr. was offered as a monthly cloud service to local governments and companies that want to engage customers on their own websites. The genius of this approach is that organizations that lack in-house developers or energy analysts can still deploy a sophisticated simulator on their site in as little as 3 months. It uses Enegaeru API on the back-end, but with a pre-built front-end template. This addresses a prior challenge: many entities wanted to provide online self-service simulation tools (especially after Tokyo’s solar mandate news sparked consumer interest), but they didn’t have the expertise to develop or maintain them. Enegaeru API plus ready-made UI solved that, allowing, for example, a prefectural government to embed a solar calculator for residents that accounts for local subsidies and shows backup power benefits with graphics – all without coding it from scratch. Importantly, Enegaeru API has already been adopted by over 20 major organizations (as of early 2023) for powering such web simulators, including leading PV manufacturers and “new electricity” retail providers.

• Enterprise System Integration: Larger companies often prefer to integrate tools into their existing CRM or sales software. Enegaeru API makes this possible. For instance, XSOL (the large PV company mentioned earlier) essentially built their internal “XSOL NAVI” platform around Enegaeru API. By doing so, they achieved not only the time savings we discussed (cutting simulation runs from hours to minutes) but also ensured their system is always up-to-date with the latest rate plans without manual input. The API handles all heavy lifting, from crunching load data to fetching the right prices. XSOL’s success story is now being mirrored by others: multiple top-10 solar panel manufacturers and specialized trading firms have quietly integrated Enegaeru API to power their dealer quote tools and customer proposal systems. The 2025 update was rolled out to these partners in a closed beta, and by the time of public launch, Kokusai Kogyo reported that the updated API had already been implemented by a major new-electricity utility, a major home builder’s solar division, an industrial PV manufacturer, an EV charger manufacturer, and more, demonstrating its broad applicability.

• Innovative Energy Services: One particularly interesting use-case is Panasonic’s “Ouchi EV Charging Service”. Panasonic wanted to offer homeowners an app that not only schedules EV charging for convenience, but optimizes it for cost savings by leveraging the best tariff times and potentially the home’s solar production. Rather than attempt to maintain a massive database of electricity plans and write complex algorithms in-house, Panasonic’s team tapped Enegaeru API. They utilize EnEgaeru’s “rate plan simulation” and “rate price reference” functions, which feed their app the information it needs to decide when to charge the EV for lowest cost. By using the API, Panasonic drastically reduced the burden of keeping electricity pricing info current – a task that would have been “prohibitively costly and laborious” if done on their own. The result is that Panasonic’s service can automatically recommend an optimal charging schedule (e.g. charge at 2am to take advantage of a cheap night tariff) and even suggest if the user should switch to a different utility plan to maximize savings. This is a powerful example of how a legacy manufacturing company can leverage a startup-like API to deliver a cutting-edge digital service. It also hints at how global players (EV makers, smart home platforms, etc.) interested in Japan could fast-track localization by integrating with Enegaeru.

From a technical standpoint, Enegaeru API is RESTful and was designed with ease of integration in mind. Kokusai Kogyo provides documentation and even links to demo endpoints for prospective users to test. The API is modular – users can subscribe just to the pieces they need (for example, a company might use only the tariff lookup endpoint and the EV charging economics endpoint, but not use the PV simulation if that’s outside their scope). To encourage adoption, the company sometimes waived initial fees for early contracts; by 2025 the API pricing was structured with a ¥1.5M initial (often discounted) and usage-based monthly fees ranging roughly from ¥400k to ¥1.5M depending on call volume and complexity. Given the cost of software development in Japan, integrating the API is extremely cost-effective compared to building a bespoke solution.

It’s important to note that Enegaeru API and SaaS are essentially two faces of the same coin. The SaaS products (ASP, Biz, etc.) are like ready-to-use cars, while the API is like the engine and drivetrain for those who want to build their own vehicle around it. This strategy has allowed Enegaeru to permeate the industry widely. Even competitors or parallel solutions can end up using En3gaeru under the hood. For example, some regional banks offer “solar financing simulators” to their clients – these are often quietly powered by Enegaeru’s calculations, ensuring that the bank’s loan officers and the solar installers are on the same page regarding expected project cashflows. Enegaeru’s team has essentially positioned themselves not just as a software vendor, but as a fundamental data and analytics infrastructure for Japan’s renewable energy sector.

4. Smart Energy Data Services (Tariffs & Subsidies APIs)

While we touched on these within the products above, they merit a bit of separate emphasis. Enegaeru’s offerings include standalone data access services for those who might only need the data without the full simulation. The two prime ones are:

• Electricity Rate Plan Database API: This service gives programmatic access to the pricing details of electricity plans nationwide. It covers basic charges, per-kWh charges (tiered or time-of-day), fuel surcharges, renewable energy fees, etc., for low-voltage (residential/small business), high-voltage, and extra-high voltage segments. It is updated monthly to capture any changes by utilities or new retailers entering/exiting. With Japan’s market volatility (we saw many price hikes in 2022–2023 due to fuel cost spikes), this is a lifesaver for companies that need accurate pricing. A new addition in 2025 was beta support for wholesale market-linked plans (so-called FIP plans), which require pulling day-ahead area prices – Enegaeru now includes those as well. Essentially, if a company needs to know “what would this customer pay on Plan X vs Plan Y” at a granular level, they can query Enegaeru’s tariff API instead of maintaining that data themselves. Panasonic’s case demonstrated the usefulness of this. Another example: retail electricity providers themselves use it to compare competitors’ tariffs or to advise customers on savings from switching plans. Early in Enegaeru’s journey (circa 2020), the tariff engine was already integrated by several new power companies, who reported that it enabled them to capture more switching customers by efficiently showing savings. One retailer noted they could seamlessly handle inquiries from customers about switching from competitor plans, and rapidly grew their contract base as a result, thanks to Enegaeru’s rate coverage. Moreover, their call center was able to cut handling time and cost, since the API provided quick answers instead of manual lookup. This underscores that EnEgaeru’s data service is not just about solar – it has become a general utility pricing intelligence tool.

• Subsidy Database API (“Municipality Smart Ene Subsidy” service): Launched in 2025, this is a REST API that returns details of all renewable energy related subsidy programs across Japan. A user can query by region or technology (e.g., “Tokyo + solar” or “EV charger subsidies in Osaka”) and get the list of current incentives, with information like amount, eligibility, application period, etc. The database spans national schemes, all 47 prefectures, and hundreds of city-level programs – about 2,000 entries, updated monthly. The value proposition is huge: no more scouring multiple government websites and PDFs to find what support a project can get. As a bonus, Kokusai Kogyo offers not only the data but also services around it (they have a team that provides subsidy application support and even BPO for filing those applications). By integrating this API, say, into an installer’s CRM, a sales rep can instantly attach all relevant subsidy info in their proposal and even initiate a professional application process if the customer proceeds. Companies using this have reported better proposal hit rates – because they can show net costs after subsidies clearly, and handle the red tape for the client, which is a strong selling point. Importantly, Kokusai Kogyo decided to offer the subsidy search feature free to all Enegaeru SaaS subscribers via the web UI in 2025, recognizing that widespread use of subsidies benefits the industry as a whole (more projects become financially feasible). For non-subscribers or other platforms, the paid API is available (with a fee model around ¥150k–¥300k per month depending on usage). This aligns with a survey where 87% of solar installers said they were eager to utilize subsidies in 2024’s expanded programs – clearly the demand for making sense of subsidy info is high, and Enegaeru delivered a timely solution.

Both of these data services reinforce Enegaeru’s strategy of being the “single source of truth” for energy project economics in Japan. Whether it’s pricing in the utility market or government incentives, Enegaeru curates and maintains the data so you don’t have to. In an era of information overload, this is highly valuable. Moreover, it ensures that all simulations and proposals generated by Enegaeru or its API partners are always using up-to-date inputs, lending credibility (nothing is worse than proposing savings based on last year’s prices or missing a new subsidy that the client later finds on their own). By solving the data maintenance headache, Enegaeru lets renewable businesses focus on selling and executing projects, rather than becoming quasi-research firms.

5. Enegaeru BPO/BPaaS (Business Process Outsourcing & Service)

We’ve touched on this earlier, but it represents a fairly novel offering in this industry that merits its own spotlight. In May 2025, Kokusai Kogyo announced Enegaeru BPO/BPaaS – essentially an outsourcing service that can handle any and all stages of the renewable project proposal and implementation process on behalf of clients. This was launched via a partnership with Ecolinx, a firm specialized in renewable energy back-office services, combining Enegaeru’s technical prowess with Ecolinx’s on-the-ground execution capacity.

What does EnEgaeru BPO offer? Clients (such as solar installers, EPCs, even local governments or financing institutions) can flexibly delegate tasks including: initial site design and layout drawing, economic simulation & report creation (using EnEgaeru, but done by Kokusai Kogyo’s team), subsidy application filing and grid interconnection paperwork, and even training and educational workshops for staff or customers. It’s essentially à la carte – one can outsource just the simulation if short on staff, or hand over an entire project’s development paperwork from start to finish. The service is remarkably fast and affordable: simulations are delivered in as fast as 1 business day, and pricing starts at ¥10,000 per simulation report (with bulk discounts). There are no setup or monthly fees; it’s pay-as-you-go, which is very attractive for smaller firms who face periodic peak workloads. Because Enegaeru’s team uses their own software and experienced engineers, the output is high-quality and consistent (indeed they guarantee a “high-quality, quick delivery system” with a specialized team). For instance, if a local installer suddenly has 50 interested leads after a marketing campaign, instead of panicking over how to prepare 50 proposals in a week with a team of two, they can outsource those to EnEgaeru BPO and get them all back, professionally done, almost overnight. This not only flattens the firm’s workload peaks but also serves as a safety net for areas where their in-house expertise might be lacking (e.g., a company new to commercial projects could have EnEgaeru handle the complex design and subsidy filing for their first few big deals while they learn).

The BPO service was born directly from industry feedback: as noted, ~80% of companies said the proposal workload was causing slow customer response, and an equal percentage expressed interest in outsourcing some of that burden. Also, 90% were troubled by a shortage of skilled technical staff, which outsourcing can alleviate. In effect, EnEgaeru BPO/BPaaS is a force multiplier – it lets any company tap into an “expert pool” on-demand. It also levels the playing field: a small regional installer can now produce proposals as polished and data-driven as a large national company, by leveraging this service.

Beyond proposal generation, Enegaeru BPO extends to project implementation support (they mention future expansion into coordinating EPC and O&M nationwide) and training services. One interesting offering is a structured training program for sales teams: Enegaeru experts provide basic and advanced courses on solar and battery technology, and hands-on training in using the software effectively. This addresses the “skill gap” issue in a sustainable way – not only does Enegaeru provide a crutch via software, they actively help up-skill the workforce so clients become more self-sufficient over time.

The term “BPaaS” (Business Process as a Service) suggests this could evolve into a platform model, where software and human service are blended. In the pipeline is integration of AI agents to further streamline tasks (for example, using AI to pre-fill forms or suggest optimal system designs, combined with human validation). By offering BPO + SaaS together, Enegaeru essentially says: “Whether you want to do it yourself with our tool, have us do it for you, or something in between – we have you covered.” This customer-centric flexibility is somewhat unique in the energy software space.

For an overseas observer, Enegaeru BPO/BPaaS is a case study in understanding your market’s pain points deeply and innovating not just with technology but with service models. It recognizes that accelerating renewable projects isn’t just about fancy algorithms; sometimes it’s about rolling up sleeves and doing the grunt work (filing permits, drawing layout CADs) – and doing it at scale for those who can’t. By productizing these services, Kokusai Kogyo again helped reduce friction in the deployment pipeline, which ultimately supports Japan’s broader decarbonization goals.

6. Ecosystem Initiatives and Alliances

Beyond the core products and services, Kokusai Kogyo has engaged in various initiatives that complement EnEgaeru’s mission and demonstrate thought leadership in energy transition. A few notable ones:

• Simulation Guarantee Program: We discussed the tie-up with Japan Living Guarantee to insure simulation results. To elaborate: launched in 2024, it was Japan’s first service to guarantee the economic outcome of a solar PV or battery installation. Essentially, if a customer opts in (usually for a fee or as part of the purchase agreement), they receive a guarantee certificate that if the system underperforms the simulated yield by more than a certain margin, they will be compensated for the shortfall in savings. This “performance insurance” leverages Enegaeru’s predictive analytics and puts the company’s confidence on the line, which strongly convinces end-users of the simulation’s credibility. Such guarantees are common in large utility-scale projects (from manufacturers guaranteeing panel output, etc.), but rare in residential/commercial segment. Kokusai Kogyo pioneered it as a way to address consumer trust issues – and indeed surveys showed roughly 70% of homeowners and ~84% of businesses would be more inclined to adopt solar if simulation results were guaranteed. The partnership with a warranty provider was clever: it adds a third-party backing to the guarantee. Now, as of 2025, the EnEgaeru platform allows attaching a “simulation guarantee” option to any proposal report – meaning a dealer can offer it at point of sale. This has started to become a differentiator in the market; companies that provide an Enegaeru guarantee stand out from those that just say “trust us.” For overseas players, it’s an interesting model to consider emulating, as it directly tackles the trust barrier in renewable investments.

• Educational Tools – “Board Game de Carbon Neutral”: In 2024, Kokusai Kogyo developed a carbon neutrality board game in collaboration with a game design firm, as a fun educational tool for municipalities and companies. Branded “Board Game de Carbon Neutral,” it allows players to learn about decarbonization strategies in an interactive way. While not directly part of Enegaeru, this reflects the company’s holistic approach: they aren’t just selling software, they are also trying to raise awareness and knowledge about climate action through creative means. The game condenses concepts from SDG planning and local climate action into a 90-minute session for 4–6 people, making it far more accessible than lengthy workshops. Kokusai Kogyo offers training sessions using this game for local governments and corporate teams. The logic is simple – the more stakeholders (from city officials to corporate employees) understand the challenges and solutions of decarbonization, the more receptive they’ll be to implementing renewable projects and policies. It’s a long-term market cultivation strategy and a CSR activity rolled into one.

• Collaborative R&D – CO₂ Visualization & Aggregation: Kokusai Kogyo has also been involved in advanced projects like the METI-sponsored Renewable Energy Aggregation Demonstration in 2021. They helped develop forecasting techniques for solar generation and power demand using AI and weather data, contributing to the broader effort of integrating more renewables into the grid (aggregation and VPP – Virtual Power Plant – schemes). They’ve also partnered with companies like Pioneer and GDBL to create a “Regional CO₂ Emissions Visualization & Renewable Simulation” service for local governments, nicknamed “Eko Gaeru”. This combines data from car telematics (to gauge transportation emissions), utility smart meter data for regional power usage (through GDBL’s platform), and EnEgaeru’s simulation to help municipalities model scenarios for local decarbonization. For example, a city can visualize its current CO₂ footprint by sector and then simulate the impact of, say, installing solar on 10,000 homes and electrifying the bus fleet on that footprint. This tool, set to launch as a service in 2024, shows how Enegaeru’s capabilities extend beyond individual project economics to strategic planning at community scale. It effectively becomes a decision-support system for policymakers and regional utilities, indicating where efforts might yield the biggest carbon reductions. Collaborations like these also signal to overseas observers that Kokusai Kogyo is at the forefront of integrating mobility data, energy data, and simulation – a holistic approach necessary for smart city planning and one that global tech companies (the likes of Google, Amazon, Tesla, etc.) are also exploring. It wouldn’t be surprising if some of these big players partner with or leverage Kokusai Kogyo’s know-how when approaching Japanese energy and smart city projects, given the company’s deep local expertise and assets.

In sum, Enegaeru is not just one product – it’s a multi-faceted platform and service ecosystem aimed at removing obstacles to renewable energy adoption. From educating stakeholders, to simplifying sales, to guaranteeing outcomes, to outsourcing the heavy lifting, it addresses the problem from all angles. This comprehensive strategy is a key reason it has dominated the Japanese market for renewable economic simulation.

Impact and Success Stories

The true measure of Enegaeru’s effectiveness is in the results reported by its users. We’ve already mentioned several in passing, but let’s highlight a few success stories and metrics that illustrate the scale of impact:

• Nationwide Adoption and Market Leadership: As of 2025, Enegaeru is used by over 700 organizations in Japan including government agencies, major utilities (power and gas companies), blue-chip manufacturers, trading conglomerates, regional banks, and hundreds of solar/storage installation companies. This breadth is remarkable in a market that traditionally had fragmented, in-house tools. It speaks to Enegaeru having become something of an industry standard for economic assessments. Many companies that initially developed their own calculators eventually switched to Enegaeru for accuracy and ease of maintenance. The platform’s credibility is also reflected in partnerships with trusted brands (e.g., Panasonic, mentioned earlier, or Tokyo Gas’s Octopus Energy JV, which uses Enegaeru to help customers size PV & battery and pick optimal rate plans). Essentially, Enegaeru’s engine has powered proposals for tens of thousands of end-customers – from individual homeowners to large factories – collectively influencing a significant portion of Japan’s recent solar and battery deployment decisions.

• Higher Close Rates and Sales Growth: Companies that have adopted Enegaeru often report a substantial increase in their proposal-to-sale conversion rates and overall sales volume. A few examples:

  • Residential: ELJ Solar Corp, the top residential solar seller in Japan, saw their average close rate rise to ~60% after rolling out Enegaeru to every sales rep. With about 1000 home consultations done monthly, this translated to roughly 600 installs – an impressive yield. Their team attributes this success to improved customer trust in the numbers and the ability to quickly customize proposals (e.g., if a customer asks “what if I add a battery?” they can recalc on the spot, which often clinches the deal).

  • Residential: Family Koubou, a regional home improvement firm, increased their close rate from ~30% to ~40% within a year of using Enegaeru, and cut their typical proposal turnaround from a few days to 1 day, meaning they could engage customers when interest was hottest. They also found that the standardized report gave a more professional impression, helping them compete against larger rivals.

  • Industrial: Sunlife Corp (focused on commercial PV) achieved a near 100% win rate on proposals – essentially every proposal delivered using Enegaeru Biz turned into a contract, up from a much lower conversion previously. They also roughly doubled their monthly proposal count due to efficiency gains, which directly doubled their business.

  • Industrial: XSOL (solar manufacturer/EPC) was able to shorten their simulation process by ~98% (from ~3 hours to ~5 minutes per case) by adopting the API. This efficiency meant they could produce many more proposal variations and alternatives. In one case, they noted they went from generating maybe 1 scenario for a client to exploring 5+ scenarios (different system sizes, with/without storage combinations) in the same amount of time, giving customers more options and ultimately leading to higher customer satisfaction and sales.

  • API user: Panasonic’s new EV charging service, enabled by Enegaeru API, became a value-add feature for selling their home EV chargers and energy management systems. By showcasing how an EV can be charged cheaply and how much a homeowner could save on an optimal plan, they provide a compelling financial reason to invest in a home charging setup. This helps Panasonic not only sell hardware but also position themselves as an energy solutions provider, potentially opening new revenue streams (like subscription services or utility partnerships).

  • BPO user: Engineering firms and smaller installers using Enegaeru’s BPO have reported being able to take on more projects than their in-house capacity would allow. For example, one firm stated that during a peak period they delivered 50 proposals in a week by leveraging the BPO service, something that would have been impossible with their limited staff. Many also use the BPO as a “second pair of eyes” (a second-opinion service) to double-check their in-house proposals for important clients. This has indirectly improved their proposal quality and success rates.

• Improved Transparency and Customer Satisfaction: End-users (the actual property owners and decision-makers) have responded positively to the detail and transparency of Enegaeru-generated reports. According to surveys, 55.8% of people who installed solar said the simulation helped them clearly imagine the economic effect, significantly higher than those who did not install, indicating that a good simulation can push people over the confidence threshold. Moreover, follow-up studies have shown that Enegaeru’s projections are quite accurate. One solar installer, Itsuki Home, conducted one-year post-installation checks and found that the actual savings and generation were almost exactly as Enegaeru had predicted, which they touted as proof of the tool’s high precision (this also delighted their customers and generated referrals). Such alignment between expectation and reality is crucial for reputation – and now with the simulation guarantee in play, it’s even more important and evidently working well.

• Faster Financing and Approvals: An interesting knock-on effect has been with financing. Banks and financing companies, which used to be skeptical of contractor-provided projections, have grown to trust Enegaeru-backed figures. Some lenders now explicitly accept Enegaeru simulation reports as part of loan applications for solar projects, knowing that the methodology is consistent and backed by data (some banks even use the tool themselves to double-check). This has sped up loan approvals for solar projects. Likewise, in municipal programs, having a standardized simulation in grant applications makes processing easier for officials. Essentially, EnEgaeru is becoming a common language between installers, customers, financers, and policymakers – everyone can refer to the same numbers with confidence.

• Policy and Planning Influence: On the policy side, Enegaeru’s data insights have started to inform discussions around renewable incentives. For instance, their independent research reports (Vol.21, Vol.22, etc.) highlighted that over 80% of both salespeople and municipal officers believe a simulation result guarantee or similar policy could significantly accelerate solar adoption. These findings have been shared in industry forums and with government bodies. It’s plausible that future programs (like subsidy designs or consumer protection rules) might incorporate notions of verified simulations or guarantees, following the evidence that it builds consumer trust. Kokusai Kogyo has essentially provided data-driven advocacy for what measures can boost the renewable uptake – blending their commercial interest with a broader societal benefit.

In summary, the impact of Enegaeru is evident in more solar panels on roofs, more batteries installed in homes and factories, and more EVs charging on cheap, clean energy across Japan. It has accelerated sales cycles, improved close rates, and reduced soft costs (the “soft costs” of solar, like marketing and overhead, are notoriously high in Japan – Enegaeru is helping to chip away at those by making sales more efficient). Perhaps most importantly, it has changed the narrative from uncertainty to informed decision-making. Customers presented with an Enegaeru analysis are less likely to ask “Will this really save me money?” and more likely to say “Given these numbers, how can we finance this and when can we start?”. That shift in mindset is pure gold in the effort to scale up renewable energy deployment.

Conclusion: A Model for Data-Driven Renewable Deployment

Japan’s renewable energy journey is being catalyzed not just by government policy or global trends, but also by ground-level innovation such as the Enegaeru platform. By systematically removing adoption barriers – from information asymmetry to process delays to trust deficits – Enegaeru is greasing the gears of the energy transition. It provides a case study in how a combination of rich data, advanced analytics, and user-centric design can unlock a market’s potential. What used to be guesswork and skepticism has turned into a more science-based, transparent decision process for investing in solar PV, batteries, and EV integration.

For overseas players eyeing the Japanese market, Enegaeru represents an invaluable ally. Foreign renewable developers, equipment manufacturers, or energy service companies can leverage Enegaeru (via its API or partnerships) to quickly adapt to Japan’s unique conditions – be it navigating the utility rate jungle or tapping into local subsidies. Rather than spending years building local data infrastructure, they can partner with Enegaeru or utilize its services to hit the ground running. The platform’s openness to alliances (as seen with Panasonic, Pioneer, etc.) demonstrates Kokusai Kogyo’s collaborative approach. They have effectively built a bridge between global technology and Japan’s market specifics. A European storage company or a US smart-charging startup could, for example, incorporate Enegaeru’s Japan-specific logic to ensure their solution delivers value under Japanese tariffs and regulations.

Moreover, Enegaeru’s comprehensive approach – combining software with BPO and guarantees – could be a model exported to other countries. As the world grapples with scaling up renewables, the lessons from EnEgaeru are highly relevant: standardize calculations to build trust, centralize data to reduce soft costs, and innovate in service delivery (like guarantees and outsourcing) to address non-technical barriers. In a sense, Enegaeru is as much a business innovation as a tech innovation.

The success Enegaeru has had in Japan (arguably one of the more complex energy markets) suggests it could find receptive markets abroad where similar challenges exist – places with complex rate structures (e.g., parts of Europe or the U.S.), or where consumer confidence in new technology is a hurdle. While Enegaeru is currently Japan-focused, its creators are open to global partnerships and expansion opportunities. It’s easy to envision, for instance, a collaboration with an overseas utility or solar distributor to adapt the engine for local tariffs and incentives, bringing the same clarity to their customers.

In conclusion, Enegaeru has emerged as a key enabler of Japan’s renewable energy adoption, accelerating project development from residential rooftops to factory complexes. By delivering world-class analytical insight in an accessible form, it has empowered hundreds of companies and thousands of consumers to make the leap into clean energy with confidence. The platform’s story exemplifies how data and innovation can drive decarbonization in very practical, immediate ways – not just by informing high-level policy, but by closing deals and turning plans into solar panels and batteries on the ground. As Japan strives to meet its climate goals and as foreign stakeholders consider entering this space, Enegaeru stands out as a bridging solution – bridging gaps between technical and layman, between complexity and simplicity, and ultimately between Japan’s ambitious renewable targets and the reality of implementation.

(For inquiries or interest in collaboration with Enegaeru, readers can contact the team via their English inquiry form. The company welcomes engagement with international partners in the spirit of accelerating global decarbonization.)

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Fact-Check Summary of Key Points:

• Over 50% of Japanese businesses that declined to install solar cited uncertainty about ROI/payback as a major concern, indicating unclear investment returns are a top barrier. Enegaeru’s quick ROI calculator directly addresses this bottleneck.

• Surveys found 83.9% of solar sales reps had been questioned by customers on the credibility of economic simulations, and 84.2% of commercial sales reps believed offering a guaranteed simulation result would increase their close rate. This drove Enegaeru to introduce Japan’s first simulation guarantee service in 2024.

• Enegaeru maintains a database of ~100 electricity retailers and 3,000+ tariff plans, updated monthly, including time-of-use and dynamic pricing plans. Panasonic leveraged this via EnEgaeru API to optimize its “Ouchi EV Charging” app, as keeping such data updated in-house would be prohibitively costly.

• Enegaeru’s integrated subsidy database covers ~2,000 national and local renewable energy subsidy programs (updated monthly), which it provides via a cloud API and in-app search tool. 87.0% of solar installation firms expressed strong intent to utilize growing government subsidies in 2024, highlighting the importance of easy subsidy information access.

• Adoption of Enegaeru has been rapid: 700+ companies nationwide use the platform, including major utilities, manufacturers, and local governments, giving it one of the highest market shares in Japan for renewable proposal tools.

• Proposal success rates have dramatically improved for Enegaeru users. For example, ELJ Solar (Japan’s #1 residential solar seller) now closes ~60% of ~1000 monthly deals after deploying Enegaeru to all sales staff. Commercial integrator Sunlife Corp achieved near 100% proposal-to-contract conversion with Enegaeru Biz, up from roughly 50% prior.

• Enegaeru greatly reduces proposal preparation time. XSOL, a large PV firm, cut simulation and proposal work from ~3 hours per case (Excel-based) to 5–10 minutes by integrating Enegaeru API, a ~95% time reduction. This efficiency enabled XSOL to explore multiple design scenarios per client and improve customer satisfaction.

• A 2025 survey of 134 companies found 92.5% feel challenges in EV/V2H sales and proposal work, and 80.6% of those see internal skill gaps and are interested in outsourcing tasks. In response, Kokusai Kogyo launched Enegaeru BPO/BPaaS to offer on-demand outsourcing of design, simulation, and paperwork, with simulations delivered in as fast as 1 day for ¥10,000 each.

• Enegaeru’s API has been adopted by diverse partners. Notably, Panasonic’s home EV charging service uses Enegaeru API for rate simulation (to find cheapest charge times), and over 20 companies (incl. a top “new utility” and PV makers) implemented the updated Enegaeru API in their web simulators and apps ahead of its 2025 public release.

• Kokusai Kogyo’s independent research shows that consumer trust measures could boost adoption: 69.8% of homeowners said they would consider solar+storage if simulation results were guaranteed, and 65.4% said having a guarantee would make it easier to get family approval for the investment. This insight underpins the development of Enegaeru’s simulation guarantee and high-accuracy simulation engine.