Interview with Christopher von Gumppenberg: Data for decarbonization
Interview with Christopher von Gumppenberg, CEO of KUGU
KUGU supports real estate companies in achieving their climate goals economically and with little effort – with digital solutions for decarbonization, intelligent consumption recording, and automated control. In this interview, KUGU co-founder and CEO Christopher von Gumppenberg talks about solutions for decarbonizing building stock and the role data plays in this.
Wohnungswirtschaft.heute: The housing industry faces the challenge of making its building stock climate-neutral while at the same time ensuring affordable living space. What solutions do you see for this?
Christopher von Gumppenberg: Climate neutrality and affordable housing goes hand in hand. Rising CO₂ taxes, strict energy efficiency requirements, and ESG criteria set clear parameters that make decarbonization of the real estate sector inevitable – even when it comes to affordable housing. KUGU stands for economically viable sustainability. Our digital solutions enable measurable savings and make decarbonization and sustainable action a smart business decision rather than an imposed obligation.
What role do low-investment solutions play in decarbonization?
Minimal-investment solutions play a central role in decarbonization – especially in existing buildings, where comprehensive renovations are always associated with lengthy approval procedures, interventions in the building structure, and very high costs. These expenses affect owners and tenants alike. That is why we believe that optimization rather than renovation is the faster and more economically sensible way to save energy, costs, and CO₂ emissions. We start at the heart of the building: the heating system. A more efficient building is always a better building. No matter who you are.
KUGU's plug-and-play solution can be implemented in just a few hours. What exactly are you changing in the heating systems?
KUGU offers a highly scalable solution for energy optimization that can be quickly and efficiently integrated into existing systems. Thanks to its broad compatibility with over 200 different controllers from leading manufacturers such as Viessmann, Buderus, Vaillant, Samson, Wolf, Weishaupt, Remeha, Stiebel Eltron, and many more, KUGU can be used in almost any heating system – regardless of the existing infrastructure. Installation is minimally invasive and takes place directly in the boiler room within approximately one hour per property. To do this, the building is first connected to the internet using our KUGU control box. In the next step, the building and energy systems are calibrated using our unique AI process within just four days. After that, the optimal and demand-based heat requirement is determined automatically on a daily basis, taking into account building physics, weather forecasts, and tenant comfort. In the 2024/25 heating period, we were able to achieve average energy savings of over 20 percent across all optimized systems.
How do you use the data you collect, and what potential does it have?
By collecting and processing data, we gain valuable insights into the energy consumption of buildings and develop the smartest digital solutions to reduce energy, costs, and CO₂ emissions. Beyond optimization, our platform offers comprehensive monitoring with live data from heating systems: system errors, limit violations, or irregularities are detected early and reported automatically. This allows us to identify problems before tenants contact our customers. In addition, our connected systems provide all the relevant data for the design of new energy systems and thus for conversion to heat pumps and other renewable energy sources. This means that investments can be better planned, system dimensioning is easy, and sector coupling (PV, storage, heat pumps, etc.) is easier to implement.
What distinguishes KUGU from other providers on the market?
We have developed a holistic decarbonization platform that combines all steps – from energy recording and analysis to direct control – in a single digital system in real time. This full integration, combined with our strong expertise in the real estate and energy markets, not only enables rapid implementation but also enormous flexibility in adapting to individual building requirements. Another unique feature is our savings guarantee of at least 12 percent – if this is not achieved, we waive 30 percent of our revenue. Of course, our unique AI process, which works with minimal input data, is also a key competitive advantage. After a calibration phase of just four days, our algorithm creates a digital twin of a building's entire energy and physical system. Our automatic optimization service uses this model to send the ideal system operation for the next 24 hours to the controller on a daily basis. In addition to technological excellence, KUGU also offers an economically attractive solution: the costs are fully apportionable, so owners do not bear any additional financial burden. At the same time, we offer a unique savings guarantee of at least 12 percent, which means that tenants always save more on energy costs than they have to pay in new operating costs. This makes our solution particularly socially acceptable and fair for everyone. To further differentiate ourselves from the competition visually, we have developed a new branding, which we are currently rolling out. A new website will also follow soon, making the advantages of KUGU even more tangible.
What major projects have you implemented recently?
We now have 20,000 buildings on our platform. These include, for example, over 30 buildings owned by Gewobag in Berlin – by the start of the 2025/2026 heating season, we will have transferred over 300 buildings there to optimization. There are many such examples! We are particularly proud of the savings of over 25 million kWh of energy that we were able to achieve with our platform in 2023 – this corresponds to the average annual consumption of around 7,000 households in Germany. The positive response from our customers, which now include over 60 housing companies and energy service providers, confirms our approach.
What are your goals for KUGU in the coming years?
KUGU is experiencing strong growth: in 2024 alone, we were able to hire 20 new colleagues in various areas. We pursue a holistic approach and will focus not only on optimization but also on the conversion of heating systems in the future. One specific goal is to double the number of buildings on our platform in the near future. To achieve this, we will focus on new countries in addition to Germany and Austria in order to move closer to our vision of a CO₂-free, global real estate sector. Exciting projects and opportunities lie ahead!
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