In Finland great amount of buildings have been built in the 1960’s and 1970. Improving their energy efficiency is a significant challenge on the way to resource-smart society
Y-lab Energy Pilot is an experiment which aimed to save energy usage of district heating system. The experiment was carried out in cooperation with M2-Kodit and Fourdeg. Fourdeg installed smart thermostats in 46 of the 48 apartments in the house. The WLAN was also installed in the property through which the interstate thermostats “discussed”. Residents were able to express their wishes for the interior temperatures and Fourdeg responded to temperature changes remotely. The experiment lasted four months, when interior temperature and energy consumption was monitored.
In the beginning of the experiment the heating water temperature was raised to equalize the differences in dwelling temperatures. This causes 12.5 % rise in energy consumption. Despite of that total energy consumption of district heating was calculated to be almost 4.5 % percent lower than in the period last year. So in totally the energy consumption decreased by about 17 %. So the experiment achieved significant results: decreased energy consumption and increased living comfort.