Hyosung Group has reached a business start-up agreement with France’s energy giant Energy Pool to make inroads into the South Korean demand response market, the Korean conglomerate said Monday.

Demand response is a network of homes or businesses, in which end-use customers reduce their electricity usage over a given time period.

“Hyosung aims to be a leading demand response operator by combining our core technologies such as the Internet of Things and cloud platforms to precisely predict customers’ energy demand and usage patterns,” Hyosung Group president Cho Hyun-joon said.

With this partnership, Hyosung plans to participate in the electric power trade market opened by Korea Power Exchange in November as an electric power demand management operator.

“As the market’s demand for cost-effective energy efficiency rises, the demand response-related businesses using IT infrastructure and energy big data are expected to grow,” Cho said.

By Park Han-na (hnpark@heraldcorp.com)