DNA’s new service Wattinen reduces households’ climate emissions – can save up to 30 per cent on heating energy

Heating buildings is one of the biggest sources of climate emissions in Finland. According to Helsinki Region Environmental Services Authority HSY statistics, it generated more than 56 per cent of all climate emissions in Helsinki last year and over half of all emissions in the capital city region, which is clearly more than, for example, traffic. DNA is now offering a completely new kind of service that will help households to reduce their climate emissions with the aid of artificial intelligence.

“Wattinen is a natural service for us to offer, as we are already providing digital services to housing companies and their residents. We also want to make our customers’ everyday lives that little bit easier. Wattinen automatically ensures a suitable temperature inside apartments, making life easier and more pleasant. There will definitely be demand for this type of service as climate awareness increases,” says DNA’s CEO Jukka Leinonen.

The smart service is installed into existing heating systems and adjusts residents’ heating in accordance with their preferences, thereby automatically preventing unnecessary energy consumption. This reduces overall energy consumption and the climate emissions generated by energy production, while also increasing residents’ comfort.

Wattinen is based on self-learning artificial intelligence that continually gathers data on, for example, heat retention, weather forecasts and the property’s location. With the aid of this data, Wattinen decides how to adjust the heating in each room in order to optimise both residents’ comfort and the property’s heating energy consumption. The AI accurately predicts and controls the property’s heating room by room.

Wattinen enables savings of 10–30 per cent on the energy used in heating. Typically, a housing company’s savings on district heating will be more than the cost of the service. Emissions are reduced in proportion to energy savings. Reducing emissions in a block of 30 apartments will typically be equivalent to the yearly emissions from about 6–7 cars. Wattinen will pay for itself in about 18 months.

“Wattinen offers both housing companies and residents considerable opportunities to be more ecological. We believe that people these days want to curb climate change. However, many ways of fighting climate change require us to give things up. The good thing about Wattinen is that you don’t have to compromise – in fact, quite the opposite,” says Mikko Lietsalmi, Director of Business Development.

According to an estimate by Motiva, the heating systems in three out of four apartment buildings have fallen out of equilibrium over the years. According to DNA’s latest survey, practically all property managers encounter problems related to apartment heating in their work. Almost a third (29 per cent) of the property managers surveyed said they encountered these problems in their housing companies at least on a weekly basis.

“Apartments don’t need to be kept colder – they need to be heated more intelligently. It’s also worth noting that, according to an estimate by Helsingin Tietokeskus, up to 8 per cent of apartments in the capital city region are continually empty or only temporarily inhabited. Heating could be lowered in empty apartments to reduce unnecessary energy consumption,” says Lietsalmi.

Smart heating service and mobile app quick and easy to obtain

When a housing company starts using Wattinen, a smart thermostat with a wireless connection to the service will be installed in every radiator. Residents can use a mobile app to adjust and schedule their heating to their liking. Heating can also be adjusted in the traditional manner, using a thermostat. Heating is always adjusted to the Celsius scale.

Wattinen enables you to control the temperature in individual rooms. For example, a slightly lower temperature can be set in bedrooms overnight for a better night’s sleep, while ensuring it’s still nice and warm at bedtime and in the morning. Wattinen also saves energy while you are out at work or away on holiday.

Housing companies are interested in resolving heating-related problems and improving energy efficiency, but there have been no simple ways of modernising heating systems. For housing companies and property managers, Wattinen is an significant improvement.

“Housing companies have not previously had any simple means of improving their energy efficiency. People usually think it requires renovations or major investments. Heating-related problems also take up a lot of property managers’ and maintenance companies’ time. It is quite complicated to provide satisfactory heating for all residents using conventional means and without this kind of smart system says Mikko Lietsalmi.

Housing companies discuss energy savings and heating problems

• According to property managers, housing companies spend a lot of time considering how to improve energy efficiency. In a survey commissioned by DNA, nine out of ten property managers (92 per cent) said that these issues had been raised by at least some of the housing companies they manage.
   
• Forty-six per cent of the property managers surveyed said that at least some of the housing companies they manage had also discussed reducing climate emissions.
  
  
• The most common concrete measures to improve energy efficiency have been renewing or resealing windows, rebalancing the heating network, increasing insulation, and installing geothermal pumps or air source heat pumps.
  
  
• Practically all (96 per cent) of the property managers said that they encountered problems related to apartment heating in their work. Almost a third (29 per cent) said they encountered these problems on at least a weekly basis.

The survey commissioned by DNA conducted telephone interviews with 300 property managers around Finland. It was carried out by the survey research company Feelback in late August 2019.

Further information for the media:

Mikko Lietsalmi, Director of Business Development in charge of Wattinen, DNA Plc, tel. +358 44 044 3804, mikko.lietsalmi@dna.fi

DNA Corporate Communications, tel. +358 44 044 8000,
communications@dna.fi