Japan Focuses On Zero-Energy Buildings
In the wake of the Fukushima meltdowns, suspension of all nuclear plants (which once provided about 33% of the nation’s electricity and were slated to generate half), and subsequent head-butt from expensive fossil fuel replacement, energy resource-poor Japan is aggressively pushing forward with renewable power options.
Formerly a prominent nuclear booster, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe—now apparently a convert to “all-of-the-above”—has picked up on an initiative declared during an earlier administration. In April, Abe reaffirmed the goal of making all new public buildings zero-energy by 2020, and private buildings by 2030. (For comparison: the European Union wants its buildings to be “nearly zero-energy” by 2020, and the US Department of Energy has a 2025 goal for cost-effective commercial sites.)
Of course, these structures are not really zero-energy buildings. What they do is make up for all or nearly all their power consumption through conservation and by generating power from rooftop plus unconventional three-wall solar PV. Daytime excess goes into batteries to keep the lights on at night and on rainy days. Even the Wall Street Journal is perking up its ears at this news.
The rooftop power installation of the ZEB is nothing new. It’s the sides. Their organic PV cells, currently less efficient and more expensive than rooftop panels, are light, thin, and bendable. They thus offer great opportunity in places where ordinary panels are hard to attach. Mitsubishi Chemical intends to mass-produce the slender side panels next year.
Taisei, one of the top Japanese construction firms, just completed a zero-energy building for offices south of Tokyo that’s solar-paneled in this novel design. Opened in May as part of the Yokohama Smart City Project, the structure is on track to have net-zero energy use by the end of its first year of operation, if not sooner. The rooftop and government-supported all-wall solar panels generate all the power the zero-energy building needs. Although it’s still grid-connected, it can send as well as draw power.
Conservation measures include not only motion sensors for lighting, but also wind direction sensors that signal workers when it makes sense to open a window. Air-conditioning comes through floor vents to each desk, so workers can fine-tune the amount of cool air and its direction.
Taisei says its three-story Yokohama office structure cuts energy down to a quarter of that used by conventionally powered buildings of similar capacity. While in 2010 Europe and the US accounted for 70% of ZEB construction, Nomura Research Institute predicts that Asia will account for about half of the global market by 2030.
Japan’s Kajima Corporation, a 170-year-old concern that built Japan’s first nuclear reactor in 1957 and is also known for high-rise, tunnel, and bridge construction, says it wants to build a medium- or high-rise zero-energy building for offices by 2020, and Obayashi Corporation, like Taisei among the nation’s top five construction companies, is considering a “life-cycle zero-energy building” that even pays off all the energy used in materials and construction.
Though the side-panel tech is still expensive and not yet on the market commercially, Taisei President Takashi Yamauchi compared the achievement to a concept car, capable through mass production of recouping the owners’ investments within a feasible time frame. One way to lower costs would be to make the side panels more efficient. Investors hope today’s 5% conversion rate will rise to about 20% by 2020.
The company foresees expanding the concept to Japan’s crowded cities. The government agrees. Said Kimihiro Hashimoto, director-general of the Japan land ministry’s housing bureau,” Zero-energy buildings could be one of the key pillars for our growth strategy.”
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Excellent.
Do most of the developing countries need air-conditioning at all? Traditional
houses with cross ventilation and Mud offer promise. Only thing is we have to
modernise the traditional systems. There is Rocky Mountain Institute’s Zero
Energy House, Mud houses in Rajasthan (India).
The Eastgate Centre in Harare, Zimbabwe,typifies the best of green architecture and ecologically sensitive adaptation.The country’s largest office and shopping complex is an architectural marvel in its use of biomimicry principles. The mid-rise building, designed by architect Mick Pearce in conjunction with engineers at Arup Associates, has no conventional air-conditioning or heating, yet stays regulated year round with dramatically less energy consumption using design methods inspired by indigenous Zimbabwean masonry and the self-cooling mounds of African termites!
Termites in Zimbabwe build gigantic mounds inside of which they farm a fungus that is their primary food source. The fungus must be kept at exactly 87 degrees F, while the temperatures outside range from 35 degrees F at night to 104 degrees F during the day. The termites achieve this remarkable feat by constantly opening and closing a series of heating and cooling vents throughout the mound over the course of the day. With a system of carefully adjusted convection currents, air is sucked in at the lower part of the mound, down into enclosures with muddy walls, and up through a channel to the peak of the termite mound. The industrious termites constantly dig new vents and plug up old ones in order to regulate the temperature.
The Eastgate Centre, largely made of concrete, has a ventilation system which operates in a similar way. Outside air that is drawn in is either warmed or cooled by the building mass depending on which is hotter, the building concrete or the air. It is then vented into the building’s floors and offices before exiting via chimneys at the top. The complex also consists of two buildings side by side that are separated by an open space that is covered by glass and open to the local breezes.
Air is continuously drawn from this open space by fans on the first floor. It is then pushed up vertical supply sections of ducts that are located in the central spine of each of the two buildings. The fresh air replaces stale air that rises and exits through exhaust ports in the ceilings of each floor. Ultimately it enters the exhaust section of the vertical ducts before it is flushed out of the building through chimneys.
The Eastgate Centre uses less than 10 percent of the energy of a conventional building its size. These efficiencies translate directly to the bottom line: Eastgate’s owners have saved $3.5 million alone because of an air-conditioning system that did not have to be implemented. Outside of being eco-efficient and better for the environment, these savings also trickle down to the tenants whose rents are 20 percent lower than those of occupants in the surrounding buildings.
Our approach should be MODERNISE THE TRADITIONAL
– TRADITIONALISE THE MODERN.
Dr.A.Jagadeesh Nellore(AP),India