Panasonic announced the launch of an innovative CO2-saving energy solution on July 1 for a Smart City project called Future Living Berlin. Within the company’s Smart Cities portfolio, it is an important project, which helps society focus on decarbonization.
The Berlin facility combines ecological and sustainable living with digital and connected life. To do this, smart solutions are installed, such as Panasonic’s air and water heat pumps, efficient photovoltaic (PV) panels, and storage batteries embedded in an intelligent and efficient energy management system.

Junichi Suzuki, President and CEO of Panasonic Europe BV, said: "We bring more than 60 years of heating and cooling experience to the project, along with decades of battery and photocomputers, and a passion for innovation that will condition the future, for future generations."
Panasonic has achieved significant sales growth in the energy business areas of Europe, such as the growth of double-digit sales in the air water heat pump business over the past decade. The company also pledged in 2019 to grow its “Energy Residential Saving Equipment” business several times by 2025.

Efficient energy management

For Panasonic, Future Living Berlin is a key experiment in building cutting-edge energy solutions. The project marks a milestone in achieving the goals set out in the strategy.

In Europe, Panasonic’s energy experts and software engineers at its R&D Center have developed an intelligent energy management solution to optimize energy use and connect it to electric heating. The intelligent control combines heat pumps with other efficient and environmentally friendly technologies from Panasonic, such as photovoltaic panels. The technologies are integrated into an efficient energy-saving solution, not only under control, but continuously optimized with Panasonic’s intelligent energy management solution.
Ralf Becker, Project Leader at Energy Group's Europe Panasonic R&D Center, explained: "The solution is the world's first, developed in collaboration with leading research organizations to achieve decentralized energy management. We got an improvement of up to 15% ”.

Beacon for sustainable living

The core of Future Living Berlin’s green and sustainable goal is Panasonic’s line of air-to-water heat pump products installed by Panasonic. Highly energy-efficient technology, they have almost carbon-free operation when supplied with renewable energy supplied by 600 Panasonic HIT panels. Due to its proprietary silicone technology, the photovoltaic system is 10% more efficient than conventional Panasonic modules. In addition, Panasonic’s HIT technology significantly improves performance in hot environments due to its high temperature coefficient, which is an essential advantage in tackling climate change.

Using renewable energy, the air water system is used to heat spaces and create hot water, but it can also be used for cooling. For higher performance, heat pumps have a cloud-based connectivity feature for installers called Aquarea Service Cloud, which makes them even more reliable. It saves more CO2 emissions, as maintenance visits can be arranged much more efficiently and, to some extent, remotely.