Topics

JETRO Green Building Report Vol. 2
Russell Vare, Green Technology Advisor

Background
Japan is ranked as the most energy-efficient economy in the world. According to a recent Forbes Magazine report, Japan consumes only 4500 BTUs for every one US dollar of GDP.¹ The measurement used to evaluate was an index of "energy intensity," that compares GDP to BTUs consumed. In other words, how much output a country produces as a whole versus the amount of energy used. European countries ranked closely behind Japan with the UK coming in at 6,100 BTUs per dollar and Germany at 7,400 BTUs. The US came in double that of Japan at 9,000 BTUs per dollar and China at a whopping 35,000 BTUs.

This may not be a surprise, as Japan has little domestic energy and imports a majority of its fuel. Ever since the 1970s oil supply shocks, the government has implemented aggressive energy efficiency polices. The first series of legislation was called "The Law Concerning the Rational Use of Energy," passed in 1979.² There have been many additional energy conservation laws added overtime that regulate factories, commercial buildings and now the residential sector.

Consumer demand has driven energy efficiency in conjunction with increased government regulation. Imported energy costs more and residential electricity rates are much higher in Japan. According to the International Energy Agency, Japan's residential electricity rates are around 24 cents kw/h, about double the US average of 12 cents kw/h. More expensive electricity means higher costs to heat, cool, light and operate a building, and therefore a greater incentive to use electricity as efficiently as possible.

The drive to reduce greenhouse gas emissions has further motivated Japan to reduce its energy use. This report examines green building in Japan and the unique programs that have been developed to improve energy efficiency. It also highlights some of the innovative products developed by Japanese industry that help make it the most energy efficiency economy in the world.

Japan Green Building Policy
Japan has seen an increase in sustainable buildings, but very little has come from regulation. There is no top-down, mandatory green building regulation in Japan like you see in European countries. The green building guidelines that exist are called CASBEE (Comprehensive Assessment System for Building Environmental Efficiency), which is similar in concept to the American LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) green building standards. The Japan Sustainable Building Consortium developed CASBEE in 2002, in conjunction with several other Japanese government agencies including the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transportation (MLIT). Since its inception, 15 major local governments across the country have mandated the use of CASBEE, or have created incentive programs to help promote its adoption. Osaka City and Nagoya City will subsidize highly rated projects, Kawasaki City provides lower interest rate home loans, and other cities provide some flexibility in the building permit and review process.³ As of January 2009, more than 3,600 buildings have been submitted for CASBEE evaluation.⁴

CASBEE measures both the improvement in living amenities for building users within a property (a hypothetical enclosed space), and the negative environmental impacts within and outside the property.⁵ This creates a more holistic view of how a building interacts with the surrounding environment. While the rating system is complex, the result is a simple, clear presentation of environmental performance.⁶

Figure 1 A visual representation of the Environmental Quality and Environmental Load (courtesy CASBEE website)

The ranking system is structured into two main categories. First, Environmental Quality assesses the living space and can be thought of as, "how healthy is the building for the user?" It is measured by:
1) Indoor environment
2) Quality of service
3) Outdoor environment on site

The Environmental Load, or the space outside the property, can be thought of as, "how healthy is the building for the planet?" It measures:
1) Energy
2) Resource & Materials
3) Off-site environment

Once the total Environmental Quality (EQ) and Environmental Load (EL) are measured, they can be compared (as a ratio) to find the Building Environmental Efficiency (BEE). A high BEE score is attributed to a sustainable building and represents a low environmental impact.

Figure 2 Description of BEE equation (courtesy Shuzo Murakami, Building Research Institute)

Similar to LEED 3.0, CASBEE has expanded and there are now categories for residential, new construction, existing buildings, renovations and heat island. Unlike LEED, CASBEE's unique design has also allowed for the expansion to an urban scale and has added two categories: Urban Development and City. Because the evaluation system is designed to evaluate a hypothetical enclosed space, it can be used to evaluate an entire metropolitan area. The urban scale CASBEE is used to assess the environmental performance of the Eco-Model Cities project.

Eco-Model Cities
Eco-Model Cities began in 2008 and is designed to demonstrate a model for a low carbon society. It promotes a multi-sector approach that integrates transportation, energy waste and forest conservation. The project includes a total of 13 cities of varying sizes that will meet a goal of 30% reduction of GHG by 2020 and a 50% reduction by 2050.

Each city highlights a unique attribute of sustainability such as renewable energy, waste reduction, agriculture and transportation. For example, the small town of Shimokawa, population 3,900, is implementing programs on renewable forest management and fast-growing willows for a non-food biofuel. The medium-size city, Toyota, with a population of 420,000 is developing an eco-friendly car society through next generation car sharing and solar-powered car charging. Yokohama, one of the largest cities in Japan with a population of 3.65 million, has a goal of 10 times more renewable electricity by 2025.

The Eco-Model Project is an interesting concept in that it creates a focus for each city based on its size and attributes. There is not one product, one policy or one solution that achieve sustainability. Rural areas, farmland and urban areas will all have different approaches to reduce carbon. Each city will have best practices to share from the various sustainable projects, with an effort to develop outstanding projects on a national, or international level. This approach creates a structure to for a nation as a whole to become sustainable by incorporating many different types of industries to build a long-term, low carbon society.

Green Building Policy at the Municipal Level
Just as cities in the US have spearheaded their own environmental efforts, so have some municipalities in Japan. The Tokyo Metropolitan Government (TMG) has instituted a large number of measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions under the Tokyo Metropolitan Environmental Security Ordinance. This includes everything from renewable energy, reduced driving behavior and waste management. There are two programs related to green building including energy conservation specifications and a Green Building Labeling program. The purpose of the green building labeling program is to allow consumers to quickly identify how buildings rank environmentally and designed to be simple and easy to understand. By creating a system for evaluating the housing market, owners will be more encouraged to include environmental aspects into the design. There are four key areas ranked including: rationalization of energy use, appropriate use of resources, conservation of the natural environment, and abatement of the urban heat island effect.⁷ When the program was implemented in 2002, it was for very large buildings (exceeding 10,000 square meters in floor area), so it was mostly applicable to large condominium buildings. On June 25, 2008 approved expanding this program to include smaller buildings and condominium rentals.⁸ In contrast to the tax incentives and subsidies used elsewhere in the world, the government of Tokyo has encouraged green building by convincing the banking community to offer owners and developers of compliant buildings lower interest rates.⁹

Consumer Behavior
The green building policies described above have a long-term focus. Which is appropriate, as buildings are built to last for decades and the reorganization of city transportation is not an overnight process. However, near-term improvements in energy efficiency are needed and Japan has implemented several programs to influence consumer behavior and consumer spending.

The Japanese economy is also struggling from the financial crisis of 2008, and like many countries, they have created stimulus packages to help support the struggling economy. Japan' stimulus package includes a $147 billion (USD) investment in public works, health care and clean technology. Some of the programs created were intended to spark consumer spending for energy efficiency.

Eco Points
One of the more notable programs developed by the stimulus package was the "Eco-Point” system that will invest $3 billion for purchases between May 15, 2009 and March 31, 2010.¹⁰ The goal of this program was to spur consumer spending, and curb energy use and greenhouse gases. Consumers earn points from the government if they purchase energy-efficiency appliances such as TV, refrigerators and air conditioners. In essence, it is very similar to a US credit card reward that allows users to earn and redeem points for other goods. The points can be redeemed for goods or services such as department store coupons or pre-paid public transportation passes.¹¹ There are about 2,000 products that apply and points can be earned for 5%-10% of the total product price, up to $410 USD.

The program's success is debatable. Much like the US "cash for clunkers” program was considered a success because of the high participation and the value it created for those that participated. There has been a 30% increase in the sale of the items that are on the Eco-Point list.¹² Whether either of these programs have sustained ongoing consumer spending or created confidence in the market is difficult to attribute to either program. Nor it is easy to decipher how much energy use is offset for the amount of money contributed. As for the actual operation of the Eco-point program there have been some criticisms of the bureaucracy of the system and large incentives for big televisions. The stated goal is to reduce energy consumption, but consumers may be influenced to purchase a larger TV (with higher energy use) than they would have without the subsidy. The recent decision to continue the program is addressing both of these concerns.

The Eco-point system has also been recently expanded for housing under the "Emergency Economic Countermeasures for Future Growth and Security,” approved by the Cabinet on December 8, 2009. Now points for goods may be earned through new construction or through eco-friendly and energy efficient remodeling. Points are awarded for energy efficiency improvements of thermal insulated windows such as double-sash or dual paned windows. There are also points awarded for installing exterior walls, ceiling or floor heat insulation.¹³

Yokohama Eco-Point System
Yokohama, also introduced its own Eco-point system as a social experiment. This is a completely separate program where eco-points were awarded for behavior rather than purchases. Points could be earned for measuring home energy consumption or participating in environmental education seminars. Point could then be redeemed for subway rides, zoo tickets or various products donated by companies.¹⁴

Figure 3 An example of a Yokohama Eco-Point, Copyright Yokohama City

Green Building Technologies
As mentioned, Japan's energy conservation laws have been fairly aggressive in promoting efficiency. There have been impressive advancements in how products are made by increasing the efficiency demands of factories. There have been energy efficiency achievements in the products themselves through the "Top Runner” Program that requires products to meet set requirements. This includes a wide range of products such as passenger vehicles, air conditioners, TV's and electric toilet seats. Beyond the regulated products in the Top Runner program, here are several examples of innovative Japanese products related to building efficiency and renewable energy.

Residential Fuel Cell

Figure 4: Tokyo Gas Fuel Cell at a home in Japan (courtesy www.altenergymag.com)

A fuel cell is a device that creates electricity and heat using hydrogen as a fuel. Because the fuel is converted electrochemically, instead of burned, it has a very high conversion efficiency. Some fuel cells can get as high as 87% efficiency when capturing waste heat.¹⁵ There are several different types of fuel cell technologies, each with their own advantages. In the US, the most known fuel cells are large high-temperature fuel cells used for commercial buildings, or smaller low temperature polymer electrolyte (PEM) fuel cells used for transportation. In Japan, there has been considerable growth in smaller residential fuel cell systems built by manufacturers Toshiba, Panasonic, Toyota, Eneos Celltech and Ebara Ballard. Japan has more than 3,000 fuel cells installed since 2008, running on either propane, natural gas or kerosene.

Testing in Japan has shown that residential fuel cells can reduce fuel consumption by 24% and CO2 emissions by 39% for a typical household.¹⁶ Fuel cells are still very expensive; a residential until will run about $30,000 (USD). Currently residential fuel cells are receiving hefty subsidies in Japan, reducing the cost by about half. The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) residential fuel cell program started in 2004 and provided $100 million in funding through 2008.¹⁷ The program has been extended and has spurred production in Japan. Ebara Ballard has announced production goals of 10,000 units a year by 2011 and Toshiba plans to expand production to 10,000 a year by 2012.¹⁸ Scott Samuelson of the National Fuel Cell Research Center at UC Irvine says that, "Japan is a decade ahead of the US in the residential fuel cell market.”¹⁹ Even still, fuel cells will need to dramatically reduce in price in order to have a reasonable payback on electricity and hot water use. Industry analysts estimated that the price of a residential unit will drop to $5,000 each, by 2015.²⁰ As the fuel cell market matures, there will be more opportunities for economical and efficient use in the residential market.

HVAC (Heating Ventilation and Air Conditioning)
Heating and cooling buildings requires a lot of energy, about one third of total power consumption for commercial buildings in the both Japan and the US. Japanese HVAC technology has made dramatic improvements in efficiency through a different approach to designing the system. Rather than design a system that can heat and cool an entire building, the focus is how to make the climate comfortable for the users. Therefore, heating and cooling is only used where it is needed, dramatically increasing overall efficiency. Savings of 40-48% have been shown compared to a traditional ducted system.²¹ The technology used is called a Variable Refrigerant Volume system (VRV) and incorporates the use of inverters and heat pumps. Inverter control technology saves energy through the smooth control of AC equipment and can reach temperature set points faster, allowing for an energy savings of up to 30%.²² This technology is used in almost all AC equipment in Japan, but virtually unseen in the US market. Heat pump technology is more than three times energy efficient because it heats the room by recovering heat from the ambient air. Heat pumps also have the advantage of heating and cooling a space from the same equipment.

Figure 5 Daikin VRV 3 Air Conditioner

Renewable Energy
Adding renewable energy to a building reduces the amount of electricity demanded from the grid. Solar and wind technology are not unique to Japan; there are many US and European countries in this industry. However, Japan has developed some interesting advancements in this area.

Solar
Sanyo Corporation has developed dual-sided (or bi-facial) solar panels that allow for capture of sunlight on both sides of a panel. When installed in pathways or other settings that allow for the capture of reflected light from below, 30% more power can be generated and efficiency of a module can increase to 17%.²³ More power and more efficiency are always good, but this also opens up new possibilities for architectural design and inventive ways to incorporate solar to the built environment.

Wind
Small-scale wind cannot generate enough electricity to power an entire building, but it can offset electricity demand. Again, wind turbines are not unique to Japan, but a Japanese company Zephyr has developed a swing rudder technology that allows for instant response to wind direction changes and more efficient power generation.²⁴

Figure 6 Zephyr small-scale wind, Airdolphin model

Lighting
There have also been advances unique to Japan that may appeal to US households. Hitachi Lighting released a dimmer LED light bulb in December 2009.²⁵ This is remarkable as traditional dimmer switch cannot control LEDs, making it difficult to convert some inefficient lighting. The new design by Hitachi that allows for dimming uses 82% less power. Lighting uses 11% of electricity in a residential home and 26% in commercial buildings.²⁶ These advancements in new technology allow for significant savings in a buildings energy use.

Smart Windows
A very interesting product is thermotropic glass that can self-respond to changes in heat. The glass pane will automatically change from a clear to white and can reduce solar radiation up to 80%.²⁷ This can reduce cooling loads on a building and requires nothing to operate. It also creates amazing opportunities for architectural design.

Waterless Washing Machine
Another unique invention is a waterless washing machine created by Sanyo called the Aqua. Instead of water, it uses ozone to clean the clothes. Ozone has a strong oxidation action that eliminates bacteria, odors and organic matter (like dirt) from the clothes. The machine converts air into ozone, and then simply back to oxygen, saving water and releasing no toxins.²⁸

Figure 7 The Sanyo Aqua waterless washing machine

Green Roofs and Food Production
Green roofs reduce a building's carbon footprint in three ways. First, it is one method for a cool roof and reduces the "heat-island effect,” which can increase local temperatures due to an urban environment. Second, it cuts roof heat gain, which increases the temperature of the building itself, helping to lower energy costs to cool a building. Third, green roofs add plants that absorb carbon. Green roofs are not new to the US, but most green space on the top of buildings has been decorative.

Figure 8 Rooftop garden in Tokyo (courtesy Masaki Envec)

Japan has expanded the use of green roofs to green vegetable gardens. Except for one project in Brooklyn, NY, there have been virtually no rooftop vegetable gardens in the US.²⁹ However, Japanese innovation has allowed for green roof development with the ability to grow vegetables in as little as four to six inches of soil. Masaki Envec, a leader in green roofing has developed technology that allows for rooftop farms with an extremely low- weight soil, which means very little additional infrastructure is required. Of course there is not enough rooftop space to feed a city, but there are several advantages, especially education on food production to urban dwellers.

For the food that can't be provided by a rooftop, another interesting development are "plant factories.” As a way to address food safety and food supply, the Ozu Corporation grows lettuce in sterile environments free from dirt, bugs and fresh air. Vegetables are grown 24 hours a day, seven days a week and can be cropped up to 20 times per year. The production process uses less water and the food is grown close to where it is consumer, reducing energy used in distribution. This type of food production may become necessary if the effects of climate change become more severe or unpredictable.

Figure 9 A picture from the Ozu Corporation plant factory

Conclusion
Japan is renowned for its new technology and has brought many new and interesting products to the market from Nintendo to the hybrid car. As shown here, Japan has also developed several unique policies in regards to green buildings and energy efficiency. CASBEE building standards and the Eco-Model Cities programs demonstrate a path to a sustainable community.

A small number of green building products have been highlighted to show the developments coming from Japan. These products are driven by innovative policy, high utility rates, and aggressive greenhouse gas reduction goals. Expect Japan to continue to be a leader as the most energy-efficient economy in the world and an innovator in green buildings products.

A PDF copy of this report is available online here:
JETRO Green Building Report Vol. 2: Japanese Green Building Technologies: New Innovations and Policy (353 KB)

------------------------

¹http://www.forbes.com
² http://www.asiaeec-col.eccj.or.jp
³Page 26 of presentation: http://www.iea.org
⁴From Shuzo Murakami, Building Research Institute presentation http://www.iea.org
⁵http://www.ibec.or.jp
⁶http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu
⁷http://www.kankyo.metro.tokyo.jp
⁸http://www.japanfs.org
⁹http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu
¹⁰http://www.hktdc.com
¹¹http://search.japantimes.co.jp
¹²http://www.ft.com
¹³http://www.meti.go.jp
¹⁴http://www.japanfs.org
¹⁵http://www.altenergymag.com
¹⁶"Start Selling from FY2009: Pioneer of the World,” brochure from Ene-Farm by New Energy Foundation (http://nef.or.jp)
¹⁷http://spectrum.ieee.org
¹⁸http://www.altenergymag.com
¹⁹http://marketplace.publicradio.org/
²⁰http://marketplace.publicradio.org
²¹Daikin Presentation
²²http://www.jetro.org
²³http://us.sanyo.com
²⁴http://www.zephyreco.co.jp
²⁵http://www.japanfs.org
²⁶Department of Energy, http://www.facebook.com
²⁷From Affinity Windows brochure - http://www.jetro.org
²⁸http://www.treehugger.com
²⁹The Rooftop Farms project in Brooklyn, NY (http://rooftopfarms.org)