BASF materials help make demonstration project at Yokohama Smart Community more energy efficient
Tokyo, Japan – May 8, 2013 – Materials and technologies from BASF, the world’s leading chemical company, are helping to make a newly-completed demonstration project at Yokohama Smart Community more energy efficient.
Smart Cell, a field demonstration and research house at the Yokohama Smart Community, is designed as a community model for the next generation. BASF construction chemicals including Smart Dynamic Concrete, Neopor, Elastopave® and Protectosil® CIT, help achieve this goal.
Through a specialized team focusing on support to the construction industry, BASF provides integrated solutions which address multiple aspects of energy management throughout a building. The construction industry team at BASF Japan was formed in 2009.
Smart Cell opened the Yokohama Smart Community housing exhibition area at tvk Housing Plaza, Yokohama on April 26, 2013. BASF has been participating in the Yokohama Smart Community project since March 2012, supported by the city of Yokohama.
BASF’s high-fluidity concrete, Smart Dynamic Concrete, reduces construction period and enables high-durable and high quality of concrete construction regardless of the technical level and skills of construction workers. Neopor, BASF’s innovative insulation foam, reduces energy use for cooling houses in hot and humid climates and as such is effective for energy-efficient construction and Protectosil® CIT for surface protection of concrete with corrosion inhibitor, which helps to prolong the life of designed building construction. The use of BASF’s water-permeable pavement, Elastopave®, can enhance the energy efficiency in structures, leading to the alleviation of the urban heat island effect and the reduction in CO2 emissions.
The Smart Cell project is a community model that aims to foster the natural environment, as well as arts and culture that vitalize the residents, and to develop a recycling society with efficient energy use that is also conscious of food, healthcare, and the natural environment. “BASF supports the ideas and the concept in this project, and we are glad to have the opportunity to provide solutions for the needs of society for a sustainable future through our chemicals. We are committed to contributing to the development of smart house technologies through innovations based on chemistry,” said Kazushige Sehata, Vice President of BASF Japan.
BASF will continue to offer added value alongside its wide-ranging solutions and techniques in the construction industry.
About Yokohama Smart Community
The “Yokohama Smart Community” was inaugurated in June 2011, when companies and organizations that identify with and support the principle, “In order to realize a truly rich and full community life, it is imperative to learn from nature” joined together to develop technology to effectively incorporate the use of natural energy into everyday life. Our motto is “technology’s place is assisting in the care of nature and humans”, and to that end we conduct the following technological researches:
- Effectively utilizing natural energy.
- Taking measures against community power failures and reducing the system’s load.
- Linking of energy and information between houses.
- Researching to create a compact community that is in a symbiotic relationship with nature, is self-sufficient, and recycling-based.
- Building a vision for the future that transcends individual industry sectors and industry types.
- A project that will last for “100 years”, continuing to evolve toward the future.