Viikki Environmental House is one of Finland's most energy-efficient office buildings. Thanks to the integration of Fourdeg Ltd's Smart Heating® service, the house has now become even more energy efficient, with the help of the mySMARTLife project. The heating consumption is controlled via smart thermostats. Now, office and conference room temperature can be adjusted intelligently and purposefully, which decreases energy consumption and improves working comfort.
Intelligent thermostats can also be used to test heat Demand Response which is piloted by Helen Ltd and Fourdeg Ltd. Demand Response, i.e. equalisation of consumption peaks by shifting the use to a more favourable time, is already common in the electricity sector. In an optimum situation, district heat is consumed more efficiently throughout the network and thus the peak load boilers are used less frequently. While testing the Demand Response potential, the aim is to control the heating so that the employee does not notice the change in indoor room temperature.
Furthermore, the VTT Technology Research Center of Finland controls a few rooms of Viikki with its Human Thermal Model. The model adjusts the temperature of the test rooms in real-time according to the user's experience and thus improves the employee's working comfort.
In accordance with its new city strategy, Helsinki aims at carbon neutrality by 2035. This goal is achieved, among other things, through enhancing the energy consumption of buildings, which also justifies the work at Viikki. Viikki's office building was selected as a test site for the mySMARTLife project, as there are already solar panels, electric storage and ground cold, whose efficiency is also being studied in the project.
