Electricity consumption and living conditions data gathered from housing companies supports Helsinki in moving towards energy efficiency
The City of Helsinki’s innovation company, Forum Virium, needed a partner to obtain information on the energy consumption and living conditions of housing companies and apartments in the Kalasatama district of Helsinki.
From technical capability to information management and understanding
The conditions of land transfer for Kalasatama buildings require significant technical capability, e.g., in connection with the monitoring of energy consumption and living conditions, that consumption data must be established on a housing-by-apartment basis.
Kerkko Vanhanen, Forum Virium
– It was great that we found a partner who technically and contractually already had some of Kalasatama's residential buildings in its possession. Through the project, we gained a partner that genuinely enables the collection of energy and living conditions data from certain residential properties in Kalasatama. The technical platform maintained by Cozify enables us to have versatile data from as many buildings as possible, with minimal effort, says Kerkko Vanhanen, Program Director at Forum Virium.
Within the project, Cozify offers a scalable technical interface for collecting and utilizing energy and living conditions data – even in real time. The data is agreed (the necessary data recovery permits are obtained from housing companies and their residents) and, if necessary, anonymized automatically. Contractually, it is important that the data protection and data ownership of both the individual resident and the housing company are respected in the use of the data. Within the project, Forum Virium is responsible for building processes related to the legality of the collected data and for its practical utilization during the research project.
- We collect huge amounts of data from the Kalasatama area. Our goal is to make the lives of residents more comfortable and to raise awareness of household consumption. Cooperation with Forum Virium in data production is, in my opinion, a natural continuation of our goals, says Remo Kallio, Chief Technology Officer at Cozify.
The challenges of the project are not related to technical difficulties, but rather to the amount of the right kind of information.
- In the project, the technical work itself using our service has been very straightforward. The challenges lie in finding a balance between the amount and accuracy of information so that privacy and information security issues are properly in order. Our desire is to enable this kind of data to be made available everywhere, thereby creating new conditions for the utilization of data, Kallio adds.
Benefits and motivation for residents
Kalasatama's data project aims to understand the energy consumption of one district.
- Although this project is based on one-way transmission of consumption data, Cozify's solutions also enable two-way data transmission. This means that residents and housing companies will also receive other value-added services, such as energy optimization and maintenance of building technology remotely, says Kimmo Ruotoistenmäki, CEO of Cozify.
Vanhanen opens up further by saying that the goal is also to indirectly encourage and support residents in their own electricity consumption habits:
- After all, there is also a small motivational goal behind this when the aim is to be able to tell residents what the average electricity consumption value of a district or housing company is. Some residents may develop a positive competitive spirit of wanting to live more sustainably in terms of energy consumption than the regional average. It is assumed that average consumption decreases when everyone optimizes their own consumption behavior, and this supports the City of Helsinki's wider goals.
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