Mitsubishi Electric Announced Near-Complete Construction of SUSTIE
Does anyone remember the Dendo Drive House that Mitsubishi Motors showed off during the 2019 Geneva International Motor Show? The Dendo Drive House, or DDH, was the bi-product of a neutral-energy project Mitsubishi Motors and Mitsubishi Electric worked on in cooperation with Hitachi Europe Ltd. and ENGIE, a utilities company in France that has a Building Energy Management System (BEMS) as set up as their headquarters. With the use of a Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV, the project could nearly turn the building into a clean energy system that used solar energy and electricity converted and stored in the Outlander PHEV at night. Fast-forward and Mitsubishi Electric is set to share some great news with the world. Mitsubishi Electric has been shush-shush for months, and now we know why – the construction of its SUSTIE net zero-energy building (ZEB) test facility is nearly complete.
Located on the premises of the company’s Information Technology R&D Center in Kamakura, Japan, the SUSTIE net (ZEB) will be complete by mid-October 2020 and ready for testing. Developed in line with Mitsubishi Electric’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs – lots of acronyms today, try not to get them all confused – the ZEB-compliant energy-conservation technology used in this facility will be further tested and developed in the effort to create more comfortable and energy-efficient indoor environments.
The Dendo Drive House is one example of how well this idea can work. Not only does the DDH collect solar energy, convert it into electricity, and then store it in a battery that powers the entire house, but with a bi-directional charger like the one used during the neutral energy project, can store extra energy in a plug-in hybrid vehicle. No longer plugged into the city’s power grid, owners of a DDH can live off of clean energy, control how power is used, and even go about their days as normal as could be during a power outage caused by a storm. The DDH was so compelling, other companies started to show interest, and the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance signed a contract with electric-vehicle related company – The Mobility House.
Testing the DDH, Mitsubishi Electric found that energy-management technology could reduce electric power costs by 5-percent for an office building. Now that the SUSTIE test facility is being released, we can connect the dots and see that the Mitsubishi Motors Corp (MMC) is doing well with its development of clean-energy technologies. The concept for the SUSTIE was developed in collaboration between Mitsubishi Electric Professor Shin-ichi Tanabe of Faculty of Science and Engineering at Waseda University in Tokyo. Mitsubishi Electric will also be providing planning and business support to help other companies interested in ZEBs. In fact, ZEBz may become commonplace, able to offer comfortable indoor environments while still lowering annual primary energy consumption to near zero through the use of thermal insulation, solar radiation shielding, natural energy usage, and facility efficiency.
SUSTIE is actually another acronym for today. It’s a combination of the words “sustainability” and “energy”, and it’s the first of a lineup of products. Set to launch a full-scale startup in January 2021, the ZEB Technology Test Facility could be the first of its kind next to ENGIE’s BEMS-powered building and the DDH. What other technology can we expect from Mitsubishi Electric? Follow us on University Mitsubishi social media and find out.
