In recent years, power generation devices (for example, photovoltaic power generation devices) generating electric power using renewable energy have been used. In Japan, since a surplus electric power purchase system was enacted, electric power generated by photovoltaic power generation devices, wind power generation devices, and the like can be sold to a power company.
However, there are cases in which generated electric power cannot be sold to a power company. For example, there are cases in which the amount of electric power that has been purchased by a power company exceeds a predetermined amount of electric power that can be purchased by the power company (hereinafter, referred to as output curtailment). For this reason, there are cases in which a storage battery capable of temporarily storing electric power that cannot be sold is used by a consumer.
However, in a case in which the amount of electric power generated by the power generation devices is larger than the remaining capacity of a storage battery, there are cases in which the electric power generated by the power generation devices is discarded.
For example, in Patent Literature 1, a power management system is disclosed which predicts a power distribution network on the basis of various kinds of information including the positional information of consumers, the positional information of facilities, and map information and calculates surplus electric power of a predetermined district using the predicted power distribution network.