Mitsubishi Electric will demonstrate smart building and smart city technologies at an innovation and research district being developed as part of the Berlin TXL project, located at the site of the former Tegel Airport in Berlin, Germany, on September 1. Using an existing legacy building at the Urban Tech Republic district, the demonstration aims to improve energy efficiency, thermal comfort, and operational efficiency, while also exploring the potential for optimizing energy management at the district level using building data such as CO2 emissions.
The initiative will apply technology originally developed and tested at SUSTIE, Mitsubishi Electric's net Zero Energy Building (ZEB) test facility in Japan, marking the first time these technologies have been applied to a legacy building outside Japan.
Since signing a partnership agreement in May 2024 with Berlin TXL Management GmbH, formerly Tegel Projekt GmbH, the company developing and managing the Berlin TXL project, Mitsubishi Electric Europe's German branch, a subsidiary based in Amsterdam, has been preparing for this demonstration by selecting target buildings and defining the technical requirements involved.
For the demonstration, Mitsubishi Electric will develop an optimized operating plan for the building's air conditioning system using digital twin building simulation technology, meaning a virtual model that mirrors the real building's behavior, along with optimal operation planning technology, both of which have already been tested at SUSTIE. The company expects this to help verify how accurately the technology can predict outcomes and how effectively it can balance energy efficiency with thermal comfort in an existing, older building. The project will also test how useful building data can be for optimizing energy use at the broader district level, which will involve sharing verification reports and CO2 emissions data, calculated from the building's power consumption, between smart city and smart building platforms.
Going forward, Mitsubishi Electric plans to use the results of this demonstration to develop technology that helps balance energy efficiency and thermal comfort while improving overall building operational efficiency. The company also aims to establish a model for deploying building-level technology as part of broader city-scale solutions in global markets, starting in Europe, contributing to both carbon neutrality and general wellbeing.
