Mitsubishi Electric to Demonstrate Smart Building and Smart City Technologies in Legacy Building at Berlin’s Urban Tech Republic

Mitsubishi Electric Corporation (TOKYO: 6503) announced that it will demonstrate smart building and smart city technologies at an innovation and research district being developed in the Berlin TXL project ¹ at the former Tegel Airport in Berlin, Germany on September 1. Using a legacy building ² at the Urban Tech Republic,³ the demonstration aims to improve energy efficiency, thermal comfort and operational efficiency, and also explore the potential for optimized energy management at the district-level by leveraging building data such as CO ₂ emissions. The initiative will include technologies developed and verified at SUSTIE^TM, Mitsubishi Electric’s ZEB (net Zero Energy Building) technology test facility in Japan. This will be the first time these technologies are applied to a legacy building outside of Japan.

Since signing a partnership agreement in May 2024 with Berlin TXL Management GmbH (formerly Tegel Projekt GmbH), the developer and manager of the Berlin TXL project, the German Branch of Mitsubishi Electric Europe B.V., a wholly owned subsidiary based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, has been preparing for this demonstration by selecting target buildings and defining technical requirements.

For the demonstration, Mitsubishi Electric will develop an optimal operation plan for the air conditioning system using digital twin ⁴ building simulation technology ⁵ and optimal operation planning technology, both of which have been verified at SUSTIE. The company expects to verify the prediction accuracy and effectiveness of balancing energy efficiency and thermal comfort in the legacy building. Furthermore, the project will test the effectiveness of building data utilization for district-level energy optimization. This will involve sharing verification reports and CO ₂ emission data, calculated from building power consumption, between smart city and smart building platforms.

Going forward, Mitsubishi Electric will use the results of this demonstration to develop technologies that contribute to balancing energy efficiency and thermal comfort, as well as improving operational efficiency in buildings. The company also aims to establish a model case for deploying building-based, city-level value propositions and solutions in global markets, starting with Europe, thereby contributing to carbon neutrality and well-being.

• ¹Launched in 2021 to create a smart city at the site of the former Berlin Tegel Airport, tackling challenges facing 21st-century cities.
  
  
• ²A 53-year-old steel-framed building with seven floors above ground and one basement level to be used as the demonstration facility.
  
  
• ³An innovation district for urban technologies located in the Berlin TXL development area.
  
  
• ⁴A technology that uses IoT devices and sensors to collect data on people, objects and events in the physical world and replicates them in a virtual space (cyberspace).
  
  
• ⁵A technology that predicts energy efficiency and thermal comfort by creating a precise digital replica of the building based on BIM design data (floor area, insulation, etc.) and equipment performance specifications.