In the weekly column we take turns writing about innovation and economic trends in Asia.
(Photo: Klawe Rzeczy)
Tokyo Japanese industry is considered to be very energy efficient. Right down to household appliances and the ubiquitous air conditioners, the government and companies have massively reined in the thirst for electricity. But when it comes to one topic, Japan is not a role model: building houses. I can already see that in my apartment, built in 2001.
It is located in one of the first blocks of flats in Japan to use double glazing. It cannot be compared with German insulation. The distance between the panes is only a few millimeters, beautifully framed in a frame made of the wonderful heat conductor aluminum. But that’s still better than the simple single glazing that you can still install in single-family homes in Japan today.
While the federal government hopes above all for cooperation on energy security at the first German-Japanese intergovernmental consultations, Japan is also looking to the construction industry.
This became clear at the beginning of March at the meeting of the German-Japanese Energy Transition Council in Tokyo: In addition to the decarbonization of the oil industry, the advisory committee of both governments, made up of scientists and entrepreneurs, discussed climate-neutral housing construction.
For Tatsuya Terazawa, head of the Institute for Energy Economics, this is an important topic in which Germany is a role model. “We can learn a lot from the German experience,” said the head of the Japanese delegation to the Council after the meeting. The main question was how the existing building stock could be better insulated.
In Japan, only production and products are energy efficient
In Japan in particular, this area promises great sales potential for technology from Germany. Until now, builders still have the freedom to save on insulation at the expense of the environment. “Japan has been a leader in energy efficiency, but the low-hanging fruit has been picked,” Terazawa said. And they were in industry, not in housing. That’s what you’re concentrating on now, because that’s where you were weak.
He provides an example right away. It is not until 2025 that stricter energy efficiency standards for the construction of single-family homes are to be prescribed by law. The government wants to use this to reduce the energy requirements of newly built houses by 20 percent. That shouldn’t be difficult. Because living in many older houses still resembles a life in harmony with nature.
When it’s cold outside, turning off the air conditioner or the traditional gas or kerosene burner that releases heat and fumes into the air freezes you inside. If it’s hot in summer, at least the environmentally conscious citizen sweats. In any case, in most of my apartments I had a bad conscience when I turned on the air conditioning. Because the coolness escaped through thin, draughty windows and thin, poorly insulated walls.
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And it is precisely in the walls that the proverbial worm is stuck. They are often poorly insulated or not airtight, usually both. The resulting thermal bridges therefore quickly lead to condensation and mold growth in the timber frame that supports most Japanese family houses. The builder’s wisdom – as an expert once told me – is: You enjoy the house for the first ten years, you live in it in the second decade and you suffer in the third. Then you tear down the house and build a new one.
Fortunately, many of the large prefabricated house groups now insulate better. This is a good advertising argument in the tough competition for customers. So far, however, the government has refrained from forcing the builders and the army of financially weak house builders to use more expensive technology for the benefit of the domestic construction industry.
That should change now. It is true that the upcoming standards are still lagging behind the European ones. But a high hurdle for the import of German building materials has finally been removed to some extent. The lack of a regulatory framework for a minimum level of insulation has been an important reason why modern building foils and insulation materials from abroad have had such a hard time in Japan. And so there may also be more traction in energy efficiency in the construction sector.
In the Asia Techonomics column, Nicole Bastian, Dana Heide, Sabine Gusbeth, Martin Kölling and Mathias Peer take turns writing weekly about the most exciting technological and economic trends in the world’s most dynamic region.
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