Europe’s smart city powered by Panasonic
5th July 2020
GERMANY: Panasonic has extended its involvement in smart cities by supplying Aquarea heat pumps, solar PV, storage batteries and controls at the new European lighthouse project Future Living Berlin.
Billed as a beacon for sustainable living, the Berlin smart city project, the first in Europe, comprises 90 apartments and 10 shops on an area of 7,604m². It is based in Aldershof, south west Berlin, home to a new city of science, technology and media.
Panasonic provides the core energy component of Future Living Berlin (FLB) with Aquarea air-to-water heat pumps, PV panels and energy storage batteries. The project benefits from Panasonic’s experience with its involvement in the smart town development in Fujisawa City, Japan.
The energy concept of FLB focuses on a green and sustainable supply and the intelligent and efficient use of locally generated energy. A key part of the concept is the managing and monitoring of the technology through Panasonic’s intelligent algorithms, part of the energy management solution.
In total, 17 Aquarea heat pumps of 16kW capacity are used on the site, along with 600 Panasonic HIT panels. With the PV panels supplying a capacity of 195kWp, the heat pumps are said to run almost carbon-free.
The Aquarea’s are used for space heating, via radiators and underfloor, and warm water generation. The system also provides cooling in summer.
All the heat pumps are connected to Panasonic’s remote monitoring Service Cloud, as well as the Aquarea Smart Cloud to allow end-users to monitor their power usage via smartphone.
A 160kW capacity lithium ion battery acts as a buffer for times when sunlight isn’t available to produce electricity.
