Japanese government will accelerate utilization of sewage heat for office and residential buildings. Land Ministry and Environment Ministry will jointly prepare a map of urban areas showing available amount of heat. Developers can take advantage of it when they make urban planning and designing. Land Ministry will also formulate a guideline on business operations of sewage heat use which will introduce prior examples.

While Japan possesses as much amount of sewage heat as can cover air-conditioning of 15 million households according to the Ministry, there have few records in application of sewage heat because of lack of information. Assuming that needs of sewage heat for ACs and hot water system will grow, the government decided to develop “the Sewage Heat Potential Map” in fiscal 2014 starting this April. (2014/02/28)