Mitsubishi Electric Demonstrates Smart Building Technologies in Berlin
Mitsubishi Electric Corporation has announced plans to demonstrate advanced smart building and smart city technologies at Berlin’s Urban Tech Republic, an innovation and research district being developed as part of the Berlin TXL project at the former Tegel Airport in Germany. The demonstration, scheduled for September 1, will focus on improving energy efficiency, indoor thermal comfort and building operational performance while exploring how building data can support more efficient energy management across an entire district.
The initiative represents an important step in Mitsubishi Electric’s efforts to apply technologies developed in Japan to existing buildings in international markets. For the first time outside Japan, technologies developed and verified at SUSTIE, Mitsubishi Electric’s net Zero Energy Building (ZEB) technology test facility in Japan, will be applied to a legacy building.
The demonstration will use an existing building at the Urban Tech Republic rather than a newly constructed facility. This approach is significant because many buildings in cities around the world were built before modern energy-efficiency technologies became widely available. Retrofitting such buildings can be challenging, particularly when organizations seek to improve energy performance without compromising occupant comfort or disrupting existing operations.
Mitsubishi Electric intends to address these challenges by combining building simulation, digital twin technology and optimized operational planning. The company will develop an optimized operating plan for the building’s air-conditioning system using technologies that have already been tested and verified at SUSTIE.
Through the demonstration, Mitsubishi Electric will evaluate how accurately the digital twin simulation can predict building conditions and energy requirements. The company will also assess whether optimized operation can effectively balance energy efficiency with thermal comfort.
The project is expected to provide practical insights into how existing buildings can become more energy efficient through the use of data-driven technologies. Instead of relying solely on equipment upgrades, the approach focuses on using building information and advanced control strategies to improve the way systems operate.
A key element of the initiative is the use of building data to explore energy optimization beyond an individual facility. Mitsubishi Electric plans to investigate how information such as carbon dioxide emissions and other building performance data could potentially be used to improve energy management at the district level.
This broader perspective reflects the growing importance of smart city technologies. As urban areas become increasingly connected, individual buildings can potentially contribute data that helps city planners and facility operators understand energy consumption patterns across larger areas. Such information could support more coordinated approaches to energy management and help identify opportunities to reduce emissions.
The Urban Tech Republic provides a suitable environment for testing these technologies because it is being developed as an innovation and research district within the Berlin TXL project. The site is transforming the former Tegel Airport into a new urban district focused on research, technology, innovation and sustainable development.
Mitsubishi Electric has been working with Berlin TXL Management GmbH, the developer and manager of the Berlin TXL project, as part of a partnership established in May 2024. Since signing the partnership agreement, the German branch of Mitsubishi Electric Europe B.V. has been preparing for the demonstration.
The preparation process has included identifying suitable buildings for the project and establishing the technical requirements necessary to carry out the demonstration. This work has enabled the companies to develop a testing framework tailored to the conditions of the selected legacy building.
The partnership also demonstrates the importance of collaboration between technology providers and urban development organizations when testing smart city solutions. By working directly with the organization responsible for managing the district, Mitsubishi Electric can assess its technologies within a real-world urban environment rather than relying exclusively on controlled laboratory conditions.
SUSTIE plays a central role in the project. Located in Japan, the facility is Mitsubishi Electric’s technology test site for ZEB-related solutions and provides an environment for developing and verifying technologies designed to reduce building energy consumption. The technologies being brought to Berlin have already undergone testing at the Japanese facility, providing a foundation for their application in an existing European building.
One of the main objectives of the Berlin demonstration will be to verify the performance of Mitsubishi Electric’s digital twin building simulation technology. Digital twins can create virtual representations of physical buildings, allowing operators to model conditions and assess how different operational strategies may affect energy consumption and indoor environments.
By applying this technology to the selected building, Mitsubishi Electric will examine whether simulated predictions correspond closely with actual building performance. The results could help determine how effectively digital twin technology can be used to optimize HVAC operations in existing facilities.
Thermal comfort will also remain an important consideration. Improving energy efficiency should not come at the expense of occupants’ comfort, particularly in buildings where heating and cooling systems have a direct impact on working conditions. Mitsubishi Electric’s optimized operation planning technology is therefore intended to find an appropriate balance between reducing energy consumption and maintaining suitable indoor temperatures.
The demonstration also has potential implications for carbon reduction. Buildings are a major component of urban energy consumption, and improving the efficiency of existing facilities can contribute to broader sustainability goals. By incorporating building performance data into district-level energy planning, cities may be able to develop more coordinated strategies for managing energy demand and reducing emissions.
For Mitsubishi Electric, the Berlin project represents an opportunity to evaluate how its smart building technologies perform under European conditions and within an existing urban environment. It also provides an opportunity to gather practical data that could guide future applications of similar solutions.
The company expects the demonstration to generate valuable information on prediction accuracy, energy efficiency, thermal comfort and operational performance. At the district level, the project will further examine whether building data can contribute to optimized energy management across multiple facilities.
As cities worldwide work to improve energy efficiency while reducing carbon emissions, technologies capable of connecting building operations with wider urban energy systems are becoming increasingly important. Mitsubishi Electric’s initiative at Berlin’s Urban Tech Republic demonstrates how digital technologies, building data and advanced control systems can potentially transform the performance of existing buildings.
The project marks a significant milestone in the international application of Mitsubishi Electric’s ZEB technologies and could provide a model for future smart building and smart city initiatives involving legacy buildings in other markets.
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