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Takasago Thermal Engineering Innovation Center is part of a new campus of Takasago Thermal Engineering in Tsukubamirai City, in Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan. The campus has a new innovation center, and a laboratory is a place of growth where diverse people gather and develop their dreams, a place of creation that connects knowledge and wisdom inside and outside the company, and a place of dissemination to expand Takasago’s technology to the world.

Takasago Thermal Engineering is an HVAC leading company, and the building is a show window of technologies.

The building is designed to become a net ZEB – Zero Energy Building by actively adopting leading air conditioning systems and renewable energy. The building achieved approximately 80% of energy cost reduction when compared with ASHRAE 90.1-2010. Well water, a source of usually unused energy, is cascaded in the following three stages. Initially, the entrance hall entrance is directly cooled by a radiant effect of locating the well water heat storage tank under it. The primary heat use of the well water after it is cooled is high temperature chilled water systems such as ceiling radiant air conditioning and desk air conditioning in offices, DC fan coil units, etc. After the primary use, the energy is used as a heat source water for a water-cooled heat pump package (PMAC) units.

In addition, each person can individually control desk air conditioning, and DC fan coil units in the office, which contributes to the optimization of thermal comfort. In addition, indoor environment measurements will be carried out in the building, which will be useful for building management and research purposes. PMAC water source heat pumps helped the project decrease the use of refrigerants for the HVAC systems.

The site has a biomass plant that generates electricity and heat energy. The biomass is from forest management activities in Japan. The heat is used for HVAC hot water, as well as domestic hot water and drying up the biomass. In addition to the biomass plant, a 200kW PV array also generates energy for the building. A battery is also used to store energy that can be released to avoid increasing the building’s electrical demand and reduce its impact on the Grid.

The site landscape is designed to link interior and exterior spaces, providing the biophilia benefits of being close to nature to the building users. There are fruit-bearing trees that provide local food production. The hardscape was planned with trees shadows, high reflectance materials, and water retaining hardscape to decrease the heat island effect near the building.

The parking spaces for the building are served by electric vehicle chargers that will not only help to advance greener transportation options but also the vehicle-to-building technology will be tested on the project.

In addition to efficient irrigation and efficient plumbing fixtures, the water discharged from the building cafeteria is cleaned and reused for flushing. The project achieved over 65% water use reduction when considering the whole project’s water usage.