Sekisui House, Toshiba and Honda build smart house

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Sekisui House Ltd, Toshiba Corp and Honda Motor Co have jointly built a new demonstration test house in Saitama City and have begun verification of the advanced lifestyle with their information technologies, personal mobility and energy management technologies designed to realize comprehensive control over supply and demand of energy for houses, mobility products and community.

The new demonstration test house is a fully livable two-family house designed to further advance technologies in real world that will support future life by testing new technological challenges such as the mutual supply of electricity and hot water generated in the two households, non-contact recharging of an electric vehicle, electric supply from the vehicles to the home and community, and the creation of the residential space that enhances the usability of personal mobility products. For example, surplus electricity by photovoltaic generation in one of the two households can be used in another household.

Under a brand vision of “SLOW & SMART,” Sekisui House has been promoting various initiatives to utilize advanced technologies for a comfortable and enjoyable lifestyle. While envisioning popularization of “net zero-energy” houses in 2020, Sekisui House has been offering a smart house, under the brand name of “Green First Zero,” which is equipped with various energy creation and saving technologies optimally controlled by HEMS (home energy management system).

In order to accomplish a stable energy supply and creation of comfortable and efficient living space, Toshiba has been offering solutions that combine energy devices, smart home appliances and cloud services. Such solutions have been provided in a broad range of forms from household appliances for a household to the “demand-response” demonstration for a community which connect houses and the community.

Honda built two demonstration test houses in Saitama in April 2012 and Honda Smart Home U.S. in California earlier this year, and has been verifying the effectiveness of its energy management technologies which enable in-house energy production and consumption. Honda also has been studying the ideal future of personal mobility.

Moreover, in November 2013, the three companies jointly exhibited at the SMART MOBILITY CITY 2013, an organizer-themed project held within the venue of the 43rd Tokyo Motor Show. Through this exhibit, the three companies collaborated beyond the boundaries of industries and proposed a future lifestyle where houses, electric appliances and automobiles are linked to one another.

This time, the three companies envisioned an enjoyable lifestyle that is sustainable throughout the course of a person’s lifetime, as well as a 2020 lifestyle of the future where houses and mobility products emit zero CO2, and such lifestyles were embodied in the newly-built fully livable two-family demonstration test house. Utilizing this new test house, the three companies will conduct various verification tests with the aim to establish technologies that realize a futuristic lifestyle and to put such technologies into practical use.