Benefits of Smart Heating
Increased comfort
- Automatic service.
- Better heating quality with individual and stable heating.
- Room level accuracy.
20-35% cost savings
- Up to 35% savings in heating energy.
- Additional savings in maintenance costs, with improved resident satisfaction and Demand-side Management.
Raised value of property
- Digitizing a traditional technology.
- Modernizes the building heating system.
- Brand image as an advanced real estate service.
- Connectable to other building automation systems.
Reduced emissions
- 2/3 of the energy consumption of housing is spent on heating.
- In Finland 15% savings on heating energy equals to remove 590.000 cars from traffic.
Adaptive and intelligent
- Patented algorithms.
- Machine learning the individual heat response of each room.
- Predictive to the local forecast.
- Adaptive to local changes.
Optimal environment for increased work performance
- According to VTT, the perceived optimal temperature varies within 6°C.
- 1°C deviation decreases work performance with 2%, that is >1.000€/a in average wage.
- Fourdeg enables room level temperature setting.
Preventative maintenance
- Automated service with a real-time remote access.
- Alarms and tracking for preventive maintenance and immediate action.
- Reports to improve energy efficiency and renovation planning.
- Managing a number of buildings efficiently.
Easy and affordable thermal renovation
- An independent solution, or in conjunction with other thermal renovations.
- Fast installation, premises can be in normal use and heating is not cut off.
- Up to a 3-6 years payback.
- A profitable investment.
Office building, Kuopio
Fourdeg installed in cooperation with Lassila & Tikanoja an office building in Kuopio, Eastern Finland. The thermal conditions in the premise were moderate, and the property owners were searching for new opportunities to balance indoor conditions.
Mr. Antti Toivanen, Business Director from Lassila & Tikanoja tells about Fourdeg service: "With smart control of heating, more stable indoor conditions have been achieved with a lower amount of energy."
"Following the installation, the people working in the premises have felt the conditions in the premises to be evener."
Residential building, Helsinki
The M2-Kodit Energy Pilot was implemented at a residential building from the 80's. Energy Pilot is a project to savings in district heating, where indoor temperature is measured, adjusted and monitored.
The residents played an important role. They had an opportunity to select the temperature of their apartment from three temperature options. The up-to-date energy consumption of the property was on a digital display in the corridor.
The pilot saved energy by 11%. According to the statistics from district heating provider Helen, the building is more efficient than comparable buildings and in March 2017 the building's energy consumption was 29% lower than predicted.
After the pilot, the service in the property continues.
A+ Office Building, Helsinki
Fourdeg pilots an office building that would meet and exceed the highest standards of environmental friendliness in the EU-funded mySMARTLife project. The target is to pilot demand-side management in district heating and demand-controlled heating. During 2018, 38MWh (9%) of heating energy was saved compared to 2017.
The pilot was partaken by the City of Helsinki, the Energy Company Helen, the VTT Technical Research Center of Finland and Fourdeg. Horizon 2020 is the biggest EU-funded Research and Innovation program that ensures the competitiveness of the European Union in the international stage. mySMARTLife is one of the projects included in the program and its main focus is to come up with solutions in controlling climate change in cities.
Image (C) Rhinoceros Oy / City of Helsinki Media Bank
How smart thermostats work
Cloud service
The service is implemented by replacing the old water radiator thermostats with smart heating WiFi -thermostats connected to the cloud service via Internet.
Installation is easy and quick, and the heating is not cut off. Premises can be in normal use during the installation. .
Local weather forecast
Heating is predicted according to the local weather forecast. A building is a large mass that reacts slowly, so temperature should be raised or lowered before the weather changes.
Learning
The service learns the individual thermal response of each room, that is how a room warms up or cools down. For example a corner room is heated differently than a room in the middle of the building.
Heating readjusts to changes in the environment caused by a change in temperature, such as opening a window.
Demand-Side Management
With Demand-Side Management, an energy company can heat buildings when energy price is lowest. Respectively, heating can be temporarily lowered when the energy price is highest. A building stores heat energy so the resident or worker does not notice the difference.
Control
A WiFi-thermostat reads the target temperature and heating program from the service. It sends local information, such as the room temperature, to the service.
Communication security level equals to mobile payment security.
