Smart heating in existing buildings: Reduce consumption and costs thanks to digital heating optimization
Heating has become a financial burden for many landlords and tenants. According to the Federal Statistical Office, over five million people in Germany have financial problems with heating. In addition, prices for all common heating energies have risen significantly since 2020. Light heating oil had the sharpest increase at 99.3 percent, followed by natural gas at just under 90 percent. District heating became around 76 percent more expensive, and even wood and pellets rose in price by about half. More than half of residential buildings in Germany are still heated with gas, and a quarter with heating oil. The price trend is unlikely to ease in the coming years.
For the housing industry, this raises the increasingly urgent question of how energy consumption can be reduced without creating additional financial burdens through costly renovation measures.
Real-time control instead of rigid schedules
The housing industry has a responsibility to consistently exploit efficiency potential in existing buildings in order to make Germany's buildings fit for the future. In many existing buildings, heating runs according to fixed schedules – regardless of how actual usage or the weather changes throughout the day. This leads to energy losses and costs, that can be avoided.
Digital systems are more flexible. They have the potential to collect operating data, analyze plant behavior, and dynamically control heat generation.
Data-driven efficiency
Berlin-based Kugu Home GmbH has developed a solution that digitizes and continuously optimizes existing heating systems without extensive structural work. It is based on an individual digital building twin that models thermal behavior.
This technology is part of the Kugu Energy Suite, which bundles all processes related to energy optimization. At its heart is the Energy Optimization System (EOS), which uses AI-supported algorithms to analyze the operation of heating systems and automatically adjust them.
In addition, the Visual Information System (VIS) ensures transparency: it displays consumption and performance data in real time and allows operators to identify potential savings and see how changes in heating behavior are affecting performance. The digital approach also pays off in maintenance: thanks to predictive maintenance, problems are identified before they occur, avoiding costly repairs.
The running costs for the software can be passed on to tenants without increasing their long-term financial burden. On the contrary: the average savings of over 20 percent in energy and heating costs result in a noticeable reduction in their expenses – Kugu guarantees savings of 12 percent in its contracts.
Pilot project with Gewobag
Gewobag, one of Germany's largest municipal housing companies, worked with Kugu during the last heating season to equip ten existing buildings with digital control technology. This saved around 260,000 kilowatt hours of energy and more than 50 tons of CO₂. Heating costs also fell significantly.
These efficiency gains were achieved during ongoing operations, without any costly renovations or alterations to the building structure. The optimization was made possible by installing the Kugu Hub in the boiler room, where the control box continuously records operating data that is then analyzed in the cloud. Based on this data, Kugu EOS can automatically and precisely calculate the optimal heating output for the following day.
The collaboration between Gewobag and Kugu stems from the Group's “Innovation Challenge,” which aims to find digital solutions for its building portfolio. “The goal remains clear,” says Sven Harke-Kajuth, Managing Director of Gewobag ID: “To make an active contribution to achieving climate targets – while at the same time sustainably reducing ancillary costs for tenants.”
The collaboration in the pilot project is considered a blueprint for the large-scale integration of digital energy management. Both partners are also working on further developing the technology and gradually transferring it into everyday management.
More transparency for administration
For the housing industry, this means lower energy consumption and CO₂ emissions on the one hand, and better monitoring of system conditions by property managers on the other. Consumption data is available in a structured form – this precise data basis allows for more targeted investment planning, such as when components actually need to be replaced or where energy-efficient renovations would have the greatest effect.
Communication with service providers or tenants also becomes easier because energy flows are transparently traceable.
Solutions that work immediately
Heating costs have risen sharply in recent years and are unlikely to fall again in the coming years. As a result, there is little alternative for the housing industry to data-based solutions if energy consumption is to be reduced sustainably.
Traditional renovations are important, but often fall short or come too late. Digital solutions such as those offered by Kugu enable the housing industry to reduce energy consumption and costs immediately and measurably – a crucial step in making existing buildings fit for the future.
Read the full article here.
