Global Home > About Panasonic > Environmental Activities > Discover Panasonic´s ‘eco ideas’ > vol.3 At the Frontline of Virtually Zero CO2 Emissions

Panasonic continues to develop technologies and products aimed at a singular goal: by the year 201X, achieving virtually zero CO2 emissions in an entire house. Examples of these developments were unveiled at the Panasonic booth during Eco-Products 2009, one of Japan's largest environmental exhibitions, held December 10 to December 12.

Here we discuss some of the key eco products and technologies that only Panasonic could offer, under the three key initiatives: ‘eco ideas’ for Products, ‘eco ideas’ for Manufacturing, and ‘eco ideas’ for Everyone, Everywhere.

Panasonic is always seeking to create new ‘eco ideas’ for Products in order to develop products with superior energy-saving features, spread them throughout the society, and reduce CO2 emissions in a household sector.

At Eco-Products 2009, we introduced Panasonic ECO NAVI home appliances, which strongly help achieve our goal. Our advanced sensor technologies allow them to sense and analyze energy use, then customize home appliance operation to family's lifestyle. In particular, the technologies improve a way of operation which previously resulted in generating some waste energy even after those products are equipped with energy-saving functions. And by reducing an amount of energy consumption, ECO NAVI products lower an amount of CO2 emissions.

ECO NAVI home appliances use sensor and control technologies to minimize energy consumption, based on a family's lifestyle.

For example, a door opening sensor and lighting sensor let the refrigerator "learn" the time periods when the family typically doesn't use — such as when they're sleeping or away from home. The refrigerator adjusts operation accordingly, reducing waste energy. Likewise, our intelligent washing machine determines how large and how dirty a load of laundry is, and adjusts operation to save time, energy and water.

Under a concept that electricity used at home should be created at home, Panasonic has been developing new systems that will let consumers create and store their own electricity.

Examples of energy-creating technologies include solar power generating systems and household fuel cells. As its name suggests, a solar power generating system creates electricity from sunlight. This kind of power generation does not emit CO2 in the power-generating process. When the system generates more electricity than the home needs, the excess can be sold back to the utility company.

Household fuel cells create electricity and heat through a chemical reaction process that uses hydrogen derived from city gas and oxygen in the air. The heat can be used to produce hot water, which can be stored in a tank and used when in need. In June 2008, Panasonic set up a fuel cell production facility at the Home Appliance Company's Kusatsu Factory in Shiga Prefecture located in the western part of Japan. In 2009, the Household Fuel Cell named as “ENE-FARM” was launched onto the market, giving consumers a new way to create their own energy at home.

The “ENE-FARM” household fuel cell attracted a great deal of attention at Eco-Products 2009. This breakthrough system, created through a partnership of eight companies, was awarded the Minister's Prize by the Ministry of Environment, Japan.