Lahti GEM partners’ Business Finland project pilots smart energy management of properties and electric cars
Transport is becoming a new intensive consumer of electricity, which poses a challenge to the power systems of older properties, in particular. Merely a decade ago, electricity engineers did not know to anticipate spikes in energy consumption due to vehicle charging.
However, experts in building services engineering have been aware of this challenge for a while now. The power capacities of properties are struggling, which is why the energy systems must become more balanced and energy efficient, as required by the green transition.
‘Something ought to be done about the existing building stock. Either there are no smart solutions at all, or different types of software do not speak the same language and data is all scattered,’ says CEO Perttu Ryynänen from LSK, explaining the current situation.
The energy crisis brought on by the war in Ukraine has turned all eyes onto the energy consumption of properties, and not merely for ecological reasons. At the moment, everyone is interested in the availability of energy and its optimised consumption, not just building services engineering professionals, some of whom work in the Lahti-based LSK Group.
‘If all properties already had smart controls, we would not need to be discussing potential outages right now. The electrical engineering of the future must be based on completely new aspects, with a strong emphasis on the needs of electrifying transport as well,’ says LSK’s Business Manager for industrial technology, Tomi Ilonen.
Technologically neutral solution for energy management
Lahti GEM is a network that brings together electric transport professionals, and its aim is to create increasingly good business opportunities for companies in the Lahti region that operate in this rapidly developing sector.
Although the network is quite young, being a result of Lahti’s year as a European Green Capital (2021), tangible progress has already been achieved towards the goals. The partners of the Co-Innovation project, partly funded by Business Finland, include LUT University, LSK and Rossum, who found each other and their matching visions through Lahti GEM.
‘Quite quickly we realised that together we could be more than the sum of our parts. We have a property in Puhelinkatu in Lahti, which is perfect for a pilot. During its renovation, we can create a 3D model for a research and product development project’s digital twins,’ Ryynänen explains.
The Dream Team began to form as the operators voiced their thoughts without hesitation and found enlightenment in the Lahti GEM network. The vision and objective that they shared were refined into a thorough project application, which was rewarded in the form of a positive funding decision.
The work began at the end of 2022, and in 2024 we will be able to report on the Smart E3 project’s findings.
The aim is to create a technologically neutral and repeatable concept that can be adopted in any property in Finland and abroad. The solution that will take advantage of energy management data will also take the recharging of electric vehicles into account.
Edge computing and artificial intelligence to support charging infrastructure
The main research question in the Smart E3 project is: How to create a comprehensive concept and the related technical solutions, with which the energy consumption of properties can be controlled in a smart way through edge computing and AI?
Studying and developing edge computing is one of the hottest trends in technology, and it is promoted in Finland to a considerable extent, with Nokia leading the way. Over the next few years, a total of 10–15 joint ventures will be selected for Nokia’s Competitive Edge project portfolio. The Smart E3, which gained its strength from the Lahti GEM cluster, is one of the first projects to receive funding.
The LSK Group is an expert enterprise from Lahti that produces smart and energy efficient solutions. It employs around 300 technical field specialists around Finland. Rossum, on the other hand, is a software company that specialises in agile development and is also from Lahti.
Thanks to Lahti GEM, the development ideas of the business world were also able to connect with the scientific community. When hearing about the ideas, the professor of electrical engineering from LUT University, Samuli Honkapuro, noted how close they were to what his research team is about.
Honkapuro is the head of LUT’s laboratory of electricity markets and power systems, which studies power grid technology, the electricity markets and their business operations. Honkapuro specialises, in particular, in energy systems and energy markets.
The development ideas of the two companies met thanks to Lahti GEM. LUT University is also involved. In the photo, LSK's CEO Perttu Ryynänen (from left), LSK's industrial technology business director Tomi Ilonen, LSK's marketing and development director Jenni Grandell and Rossum's CEO Harri Koskinen.
Data from LSK, software from Rossum and research data from LUT
The Finnish name of the recently initiated project of the operators in Lahti, Smart E3, translates as Edge computing assisted smart energy management of buildings as a facilitator of electric transport.
LUT University has already carried out plenty of work together with Nokia, which performs edge computing. An opportunity to take advantage of Nokia’s edge computing ecosystem platform, funded by Business Finland, in a project administered by LUT was like winning the lottery for the small companies from Lahti.
Additionally, Honkapuro says that the researchers from LUT University are also benefitting from the project significantly. An inspired atmosphere and active engagement with the work immediately convinced this energy market professor, who has worked in projects for the past two decades.
‘Data is the fuel for research! We need data that we can use to confirm our research findings. The energy efficiency of households and industry has already been extensively studied, but the pilot location of this project represents an office facility, which still remains a bit of a black hole in terms of research,’ Honkapuro says.
As the project’s integrator, LSK is responsible for collecting the data. The aim is to develop a solution with which energy management data could be collected with probes and sensors, so that the algorithms created by LUT’s researchers can be implemented by enriching Rossum’s data.
The concept being created is a tested open interface one with which systems from different suppliers could be effortlessly integrated.
‘At the moment, properties use a lot of building services engineering solutions of various ages and by various manufacturers that are not mutually compatible. In the worst-case scenario, they may even fight each other. The solution is to create suitable software and a functioning database. That is the expertise that we bring into the project,’ says Robert Kuokkanen from software company Rossum.
Practical data proves theory
In practice, smart features are added to a property’s systems, so that in the future the maintenance and repair documentation of equipment and components from different manufacturers will always remain up to date, be easy to understand and, above all, be available for use by anyone in the maintenance company at any time.
Now, in the 2020s, it is high time to end the model of property maintenance that relies on a single individual. LUT’s algorithms that are based on machine learning add predictability into the mix and also provide help with decision-making.
Furthermore, it is highly important for LUT University to have the research findings be taken to the grassroots level. For research, it is incredibly valuable to be able to use practical data to immediately prove theories. In other words, to not just do research for the sake of research.
According to LSK’s Perttu Ryynänen, the property stock in western Europe is currently being renewed at a rate of approximately one per cent a year, which is another reason why the work should focus heavily on the existing building infrastructure. New buildings that use smart technology and are constructed in a green way according to the latest regulations are not the right solutions in the grand scheme of things.
That is another reason why conducting a pilot in a 1974 office building is the perfect way to harness scientific research to serve businesses and the entire society in the best possible way.
Read more about Nokia’s leading project, Competitive Edge:
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Text: Terhi Kangas
Photos: Jani Wallenius