On May 7h (PDT time), the North American subsidiary of Choshu Industry Corporation (President: Susumu Okamoto); Choshu Industry Corporation of America, Inc. (CEO: Sean Chigusa, Los Angeles, below referred as CICA) has made an announcement of partnership with the city of Lancaster in California.

With the start of this partnership, Choshu Industry Corporation is developing a new container style hydrogen fueling system “SHiPS” and stationary fuel cell power generator system “MizTomo” for the purpose of city of Lancaster. This system will be connected and integrated with Lancaster city’s green energy microgrid (GEM) system.

In last year, city of Lancaster has made an announcement to be the first hydrogen city of USA. With the promotion of this plan, partnering with CICA takes a very important position. Moreover, the result of this partnership is the fruit of what JETRO LA office has long been planting for in Japan hydrogen forum. It is the first project between the state of California and Japanese government with official MOC (Memorandum of Cooperation) signed.

Signing ceremony was held at the residence of Consulate-General of Japan in Los Angeles. Hosted by the Consulate-General Akira Muto, the mayor of city of Lancaster, R. Rex Parris and the CEO of CICA Sean Chigusa attended the signing ceremony to sign the MOC.
Many people joined to celebrate, including the manager of Committee on Energy Efficiency and Renewble Energy dept of METI (Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry), Mogi Tadashi; Deputy Director of International Affairs and Trade in state of California, Emily Desai; Executive Director of Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO) Saeki Norihiko; Senior Project Developer of Hitachi Zosen Inova, Lex Heslin; and Senior Executive Engineer of Toyota Motor North America Takehito Yokoo.

Through this project, as a Japanese enterprise, Choshu will promote the global development of hydrogen business and contribute to the building of the hydrogen society in Japan.