SpotNRG, a company specializing in smart heating control, has released a new Evesta smart thermostat just before Christmas. It optimizes the energy consumption of electric heating by monitoring the price of electricity on the exchange and weather forecasts.
This is the first Finnish autonomous smart thermostat that can be programmed to follow Nordpool's electricity price fluctuations. Heating is controlled during free and cheapest hours and switched off during more expensive hours. The effect is seen in a lower electricity bill.
"There are a million bathrooms in Finland with electric underfloor heating. Simply connecting them to automatic control would save around 100 million euros per year," says Tette Niinimäki, Chief Operating Officer at SpotNRG.
Many consumers have been hit hard by the winter, as the cost of electric heating has increased manifold. The Finnish government is currently considering ways to compensate for unreasonable electricity bills.
"A smart thermostat is an easy and affordable way for electric heating users to achieve peace of mind. You can leave the monitoring of electricity prices to artificial intelligence. Smart control works automatically in the background, and the user will not notice the difference in temperatures. You can tailor the heating to match your own habits," says Niinimäki.
Evesta is primarily intended for direct electric underfloor heating. In Finnish homes, it is typically found in bathrooms and saunas, but often in other rooms as well.
A smart thermostat is installed in a wall box instead of a traditional thermostat. Depending on the location, one or more thermostats can be placed in a detached house or apartment. A licensed electrician is required for installation.
Evesta works in single-family homes as well as in apartment buildings and terraced houses if the apartment has direct electric underfloor heating controlled by a thermostat. Evesta is not currently suitable for water-circulating systems.
In addition to underfloor heating, a smart thermostat can be connected to ceiling heating. Other good options include cake ovens and pot ovens that operate on electric resistances. The more heat a heating device can store, the better it is at recovering heat during the cheap hours of electricity on the exchange.
Evesta thermostats are controlled via a phone app. The device features, among other things, a home-away switch and a weekly timer that allows you to schedule different temperatures for, for example, nights and weekends. Remote control using a cloud service is practical, for example, when heating a cottage or while traveling.
"Utilizing exchange-traded electricity no longer requires a gigantic electrical renovation or an expensive and complicated system with central units. The smart thermostat is simply installed in place of the old thermostat. Then you can save money through the app store," says Niinimäki.
The potential of smart heating control is great not only for the individual consumer but also for the entire Finnish electricity system. Smart energy technologies in homes can save up to 30 percent of the energy consumption of a detached house during the winter months, according to a doctoral dissertation examined at the University of Oulu in November. According to Motiva's Elvari study, replacing the thermostat can save 50 percent of the electricity consumption of bathroom floor heating.
The most expensive hours in the national electricity grid are peak hours, when the most electricity is produced and consumed. Reducing consumption during these peak hours reduces the load on the grid and the risk of power outages. It improves the security of supply across the entire electricity system, especially during periods of severe frost.
Turku-based SpotNRG specializes in solutions and cloud services that utilize the spot price of electricity, which cut the consumer's electricity bill and at the same time reduce the need for peak electricity production. The smart thermostat, released in December, is the first product in SpotNRG's Evesta product family.
SpotNRG uses technology from Finnish company Ouman in its Evesta products. Ouman has decades of experience in building automation and optimizing heating with smart solutions.