{"id":26150,"date":"2024-06-10T15:37:02","date_gmt":"2024-06-10T22:37:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/essential.construction\/news\/giving-heating-control-to-residents-is-good-for-the-environment\/"},"modified":"2024-06-10T15:37:09","modified_gmt":"2024-06-10T22:37:09","slug":"giving-heating-control-to-residents-is-good-for-the-environment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/essential.construction\/news\/giving-heating-control-to-residents-is-good-for-the-environment\/","title":{"rendered":"Giving Heating Control to Residents is Good for the Environment"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/essential.construction\/files\/membership-default-internal\/\" class=\"memberhide\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/essential.construction\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2023\/01\/20220718_175041000_iOS.jpg\" alt=\"-\"><\/a><br\/><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"\">\n<p><strong>Heating in EU households accounts for 79% of the total energy consumption. In cold climate areas, like Finland, the percentage is even higher. Enermix set out to test how room-level control in district-heated apartment houses would affect the comfort of living and energy consumption.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p> <span id=\"more-1009681\"\/><\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignright is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/essential.construction\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2024\/06\/Janne-Heinonen-Enermix.jpg\" alt=\"Janne Heinonen Enermix\" class=\"wp-image-1009685 lazyload\" width=\"400\" height=\"448\" srcset=\"https:\/\/essential.construction\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2024\/06\/Janne-Heinonen-Enermix.jpg 800w, https:\/\/aec-business.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Janne-Heinonen-Enermix-768x860.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\"\/><figcaption>Janne Heinonen, Enermix<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p>\u201cOur mission is to digitalize Finnish buildings, especially the existing ones,\u201d says <strong>Janne Heinonen<\/strong>, the CEO of Enermix, a Finnish tech company. \u201cWe focus on existing buildings because the owners are still reluctant to invest in smart building solutions during construction because of the additional costs they entail. Another reason is that there\u2019s not fierce competition in making old buildings smart.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Enermix has developed Talotohtori Building Management System, a cloud platform to which you can connect building automation systems and IoT devices, vendor-neutrally. Talotohtori services include indoor conditions monitoring and analysis, remote building automation control, smart heating control, and energy consumption monitoring.<\/p>\n<p>Heinonen<br \/>\nfound out about KIRA-digi, a national digitalization program, and saw an<br \/>\nopportunity to test out an idea about smart heating control in apartment<br \/>\nbuildings with district heating. The pilot project got funding and then started<br \/>\nin May 2018. The experiment ended in December 2018 and provided interesting<br \/>\nresults for building owners.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Aiming at Better Indoor<br \/>\nConditions and Energy Efficiency<\/h2>\n<p>Finland is<br \/>\namong the leading EU countries for district heating penetration, alongside<br \/>\nDenmark, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, and Bulgaria. Around 65% of Finland\u2019s<br \/>\ndistrict heating energy is already generated from non-fossil sources, and that<br \/>\nproportion will increase in the future.<\/p>\n<p>The<br \/>\nchallenge with any central heating solution in an apartment building is that residents<br \/>\ncannot control the indoor temperature individually. Neither can they get a<br \/>\nseparate heating bill as the cost is distributed among all the apartments in<br \/>\nthe building.<\/p>\n<p>The Enermix<br \/>\nproject team wanted to test if apartment-specific heating control would help<br \/>\nachieve the following goals:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Improve comfort in individual housing<br \/>\nunits<\/li>\n<li>Achieve energy savings<\/li>\n<li>Reduce peaks in heating energy<br \/>\nconsumption<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The Test Ground<\/h2>\n<p>The project<br \/>\ncarried out tests in three apartment buildings constructed in the 1990s and<br \/>\nearly 2000s and owned by the Y-Foundation, a rental housing provider. Air<br \/>\ntemperature and humidity sensors were installed in 50 spaces and 11 apartments<br \/>\nwere equipped with smart, maintenance-free radiator thermostats.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTo my<br \/>\nsurprise, when we surveyed the residents, less than 10 percent of them were<br \/>\ninterested in controlling the indoor temperature individually,\u201d Heinonen<br \/>\nmentions.<\/p>\n<p>The<br \/>\nexperiment required software and algorithm development from Enermix. They also added<br \/>\nthe ability to control smart thermostats on the cloud platform. In addition,<br \/>\nthey developed a mobile app for residents to control indoor temperature.<br \/>\nAnother tech firm, APinf, provided a platform for sharing sensor data from the<br \/>\nexperiment openly through an API.<\/p>\n<p>Some<br \/>\nFinnish building owners have installed water consumption meters for each<br \/>\napartment. That way, they can charge each household exactly the right amount for<br \/>\ntheir water use. In contrast, heating costs are predominantly charged by total<br \/>\nsquare meters of an apartment.<\/p>\n<p>Enermix<br \/>\noriginally intended to devise a formula for a consumption-based distribution of<br \/>\nheating costs. Unfortunately, the six-month period of the experiment was not<br \/>\nlong enough to allow developing a fair charging plan.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The Results<\/h2>\n<p>The<br \/>\nexperiment demonstrated that it is possible to use IoT and cloud services to<br \/>\ncontrol heating individually in each room in a district-heated building. \u201cEven<br \/>\nsome professionals doubted whether you could adjust the temperature to your<br \/>\nliking in two adjacent rooms because heat is transferred via the separating<br \/>\nwalls,\u201d Heinonen explains. \u201cBut our test proved otherwise; we could measure differences<br \/>\nof two to three degrees Celsius between rooms.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Measurements<br \/>\nduring the test gave some interesting data about the conditions in the apartment<br \/>\nbuildings. For example, they revealed temperature differences between<br \/>\napartments as high as seven degrees Celsius. Dealing with such a high variation<br \/>\nclearly requires action from the building owner, such as a need to rebalance<br \/>\nthe radiator network. This, however, was out of the scope of the experiment.<\/p>\n<p>As a result<br \/>\nof using Talotohtori\u2019s services and its smart algorithms in the project, there<br \/>\nwas a 5% saving in district heating costs during the test period. The peak<br \/>\npower required was diminished by 20 to 30 percent, resulting in direct cost<br \/>\nsavings. To be able to optimize heating to such an extent, Talotohtori used<br \/>\nboth sensor data and weather forecasts.<\/p>\n<p>Users of<br \/>\nthe mobile app were able to give direct feedback on the experiment; although, the<br \/>\nproject received too few comments to allow drawing definitive conclusions about<br \/>\nresident satisfaction. Nevertheless, Y-Foundation reported that they received<br \/>\nless temperature-related complaints than usual.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The Way Forward<\/h2>\n<p>\u201cOur<br \/>\nservice keeps the average temperature at the required reading very accurately.<br \/>\nY-Foundation aims at 21.5 degrees Celsius, and thanks to our real-time control,<br \/>\nwe can deliver it within a 0.3-degree variance,\u201d says Heinonen. \u201cWhether that<br \/>\nis the ideal temperature for every resident, is another question.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>According<br \/>\nto studies, the variance between what people think of as a comfortable<br \/>\ntemperature is up to six degrees. Pleasing everyone in one building or<br \/>\napartment is therefore always going to be a challenge. Heinonen thinks that even<br \/>\nreaching a 90% satisfaction level is unrealistic, and that a 60% satisfaction<br \/>\nlevel would be more reachable.<\/p>\n<p>The<br \/>\nexperiment proved that individual temperature control with smart thermostats<br \/>\ncan be offered without compromising the overall energy efficiency. To allow<br \/>\nthis, building owners need to invest 300\u2013400 euros per apartment. The payback time<br \/>\nis around five years with an ROI of 5\u201310%.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf we<br \/>\nthink of energy efficiency alone, our service provides the same results without<br \/>\nthe need for hardware investment,\u201d Heinonen reminds. \u201cHowever, we are likely to<br \/>\noffer the smart thermostat as a next-step option in our services.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>You can connect with Janne Heinonen <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/heinonenjanne\/\" target=\"_blank\">on LinkedIn<\/a>. To learn more about the services of Enermix, visit the <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.talotohtori.fi\/\" target=\"_blank\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">TaloTohtori site<\/a> (in Finnish).<\/em><\/p>\n<p> <span class=\"et_social_bottom_trigger\"\/><\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-5143531171910809\"\r\n     crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script>\r\n<!-- News - Bottom -->\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:block\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-5143531171910809\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"8320848692\"\r\n     data-ad-format=\"auto\"\r\n     data-full-width-responsive=\"true\"><\/ins>\r\n<script>\r\n     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/aec-business.com\/giving-heating-control-to-residents-is-good-for-the-environment\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">This article was originally posted at Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Heating in EU households accounts for 79% of the total energy consumption. In cold climate areas, like Finland, the percentage &#8230; <a title=\"Giving Heating Control to Residents is Good for the Environment\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/essential.construction\/news\/giving-heating-control-to-residents-is-good-for-the-environment\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about Giving Heating Control to Residents is Good for the Environment\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26151,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1062,1066],"tags":[298,1169,1162],"class_list":["post-26150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aec-business","category-all-posts","tag-construction","tag-real-estate","tag-smart-construction","generate-columns","tablet-grid-50","mobile-grid-100","grid-parent","grid-33"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/essential.construction\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/essential.construction\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/essential.construction\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essential.construction\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essential.construction\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26150"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/essential.construction\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26150\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essential.construction\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26151"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/essential.construction\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essential.construction\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essential.construction\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}