More and more electrical devices in households are producing more and more data. With the SINA project, Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts (HSLU) is driving digitalization forward and developing a cost-effective solution for the secure exchange of data between buildings and energy suppliers. This enables everyone to save electricity.
The number of electrical appliances in households is growing. Heat pumps, photovoltaic systems and electric cars should help to reduce our CO2 emissions. This increases the demand for electricity. One problem with this is that renewable energy such as solar power is not always evenly available in the grid. In order to operate all devices as efficiently and flexibly as possible, they need to communicate with each other - and with the power grid. This requires data and data exchange. However, manufacturers of electrical installations often only collect and manage their data for themselves. An HSLU project is now facilitating this data exchange, turning every house into a potential smart home.
Saving electricity with smart homes
Energy management systems - also known as smart homes - enable the coordination of electrical producers (e.g. PV system), consumers (e.g. heat pump) and storage (e.g. electric car). However, energy management systems are currently only possible with expensive on-site installations. However, raising people’s awareness of their metering data alone can achieve electricity savings of up to nine percent. This has been shown by various studies in Switzerland. The principle: if you know your electricity data, you can change your behavior. Taken even further, this means that if you know all your electricity data, you can optimize the entire energy system.
Data rooms for the energy transition
This is precisely where the HSLU’s work comes in. So-called data rooms enable the exchange of digital measurements across system and platform boundaries. "A data room orchestrates access to data from individual households. When combined, the data is very valuable," says Christoph Imboden, Head of Research at the Institute for Innovation and Technology Management IIT at HSLU. He and his team are working on the digitalization and development of data rooms in the energy sector in Switzerland with the involvement of the private sector and the support of the Swiss Federal Office of Energy (SFOE) via the SwissEnergy programme.
"The usability of many different measuring points leads to greater energy efficiency, flexibility and a much better utilization of the energy infrastructure in general," says Christoph Imboden. The prerequisite for this is that the owners of the data agree to it. "Trustworthy data rooms are characterized by the fact that users can make their data available at their own will and with the necessary control," says Christoph Imboden. "It works like e-banking, where people decide who can and cannot send them a digital bill. With data rooms, you can regulate who is allowed to optimize their own electricity consumption and how." He and his team have succeeded in setting up a data room in the energy sector that meets all data protection requirements.
Technology with many advantages
The approach developed by HSLU provides the infrastructure that enables equal access to data for stakeholders on the basis of a common code with agreements, rules and standards. The data does not have to be stored centrally. There is also no need to install additional hardware. "This leads to major cost savings, market dynamization and a reduction in the amount of data that needs to be transferred and stored," says Christoph Imboden.
Great potential
However, the technology still needs to be developed further and adapted to the needs of Swiss stakeholders. However, the potential is huge: if 80% of all Swiss households were equipped with data rooms to create smart homes, 5.32 TWh of electricity could be saved every year. That is roughly as much electricity as our trains, streetcars, trolley buses and electric cars consume in Switzerland in one year.
The SINA project
The Smart INteroperability Architecture (SINA) approach is a pioneering digital solution for fast, cost-effective and secure data exchange in the building ecosystem. SINA provides a structured technical and organizational framework for the access, processing and subsequent use of decentralized data across the boundaries of regulated sectors in the private sector. The work of the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts in cooperation with the Neuchâtel Technology Innovation Centre CSEM and private companies from the energy sector was supported by the Swiss Federal Office of Energy SFOE through the SwissEnergy program.
