Challenge / Goal
Home Energy Management Systems (HEMS) are installed in all residential buildings selected to be refurbished by Naturgy within the GrowSmarter solution “Efficient and smart climate shell and equipment refurbishment o f residential buildings”. The objective is to evaluate the energy savings obtained through the refurbishment, to use the installed HEMS as a pilot to develop a more complete version of the software, and to help owners to know how their behaviour affects consumption. It helps to achieve the European union’s aim of continuously improving energy management within the tertiary sector.
Solution
The solution enables the informing of tenants on how to optimise their consumption and reduce their energy bills, by providing information on real-time electricity and gas consumption. The collection and provision of individuals’ energy data is fundamental to this solution. For the refurbished buildings, the monitoring of the consumption is carried out before and after the refurbishment for a period of two years starting from the end of the works.
The functions offered by the Home Energy Management System installed are:
- Real time gas consumption calculation through monitoring of temperature
- Boiler control for energy efficiency improvements
- Real-time electricity consumption thanks to current clamp installation
- Gas and electricity consumption monitoring, energy efficiency indexes, advice and gamification
- Electricity hourly prices for invoice optimisation
- Smart plugs
- Boiler maintenance optimisation
The interacting hardware components for gas and electric monitoring and control are:
- Gate: smart home energy visualisation application, with instant feedback on tablet or smartphone
- Thermic: Smart thermostat
- Pod: Smart Plug, which allows the user to control the electricity outlets remotely
- Bat: Energy monitor
Sensors and actuators monitor gas consumption through low-range RF technologies. The technology applied for monitoring gas consumption has low energy consumption and high service life, allows long-distance transmission, can serve multiple users and has a low implantation cost.
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Barcelona City Council
Reducing energy bills
Decreasing energy consumption in buildings