14 DAY TRIAL // Earlier today, Honda Motor Co. has announced that it is to enter a partnership with Toshiba Corporation, their goal being that of testing various smart home systems and establishing what technologies help make households as energy-efficient as possible.
As Honda explains, current and predicted developments in the global energy market require that phenomena such as climate change and global warming are addressed by developing more efficient social infrastructures.
More precisely, there is a need to start monitoring electricity, water, gas and transportation more closely, and energy-efficient households need be at the top of the list.
Apparently, Honda Motor Co. is already busy testing two households built close to the Saitama University, and fully equipped with so-called smart home systems.
Still, following its entering said partnership with Toshiba, a third demonstration house is to be erected by March 31, 2014.
This particular demonstration house will display energy management systems provided by both Toshiba and Honda.
Once this house is completed, the three testing buildings will be linked together and made to work as a small-scale community.
Honda Motor Co. explains how, during this demonstration phase, Toshiba will put its smart meter to work and manage the use of energy within this artificially created neighborhood.
On the other hand, Honda is to deal with energy generation and storage, as well as with throwing in some EVs to help boost the accuracy of both the tests and, their results.
In the end, Honda and Toshiba hope that they will be able to develop a smart home system that can efficiently manage energy both during day-to-day routine, and during emergencies.
Just for the record, researchers from the US National Institute of Standards and Technology are presently working on a very similar project, meaning that they are also busy testing a so-called laboratory home that hardly ever needs to rely on the national grid for energy.