Data spaces for more energy efficiency Smart home for everyone

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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 secure data exchange between buildings and energy providers. This enables electricity savings for everyone.

The number of electrical devices in households is increasing. Heat pumps, photovoltaic systems, and electric cars are intended to help reduce our CO₂ emissions. This results in an increased demand for electricity. One problem: renewable energies like solar power are not always consistently available in the grid. To operate all devices as efficiently and flexibly as possible, they must communicate with each other—and with the power grid. This requires data and data exchange. However, the manufacturers of electrical installations often collect and manage the data only for themselves. A project by HSLU now facilitates this data exchange, making every house a potential smart home.

Save electricity with smart homes

Energy management systems—also known as smart homes—enable the coordination of electrical producers (e.g., PV systems), consumers (e.g., heat pumps), and storage (e.g., electric cars). However, energy management systems are currently only possible with expensive on-site installations. Yet, energy savings of up to nine percent can be achieved simply by raising people's awareness of their measurement data. Various studies in Switzerland show this. The principle is: those who know their electricity data can change their behavior. Thinking even further, it means: those who know all the electricity data can optimize the entire energy system.

Data spaces for the energy transition

This is exactly where HSLU's work comes in. So-called data spaces enable the exchange of digital measurements across system and platform boundaries. "A data space orchestrates access to the data of individual households. Combined, the data is very valuable," says Christoph Imboden, research director at the Institute of Innovation and Technology Management IIT at HSLU. He and his team are working with the involvement of the private sector and with support from the Swiss Federal Office of Energy BFE through the EnergieSchweiz program on the digitization and establishment of data spaces in the energy sector in Switzerland.

"The usability of many different measurement points leads to more energy efficiency, flexibility, and generally to a much better utilization of the energy infrastructure," says Christoph Imboden. The prerequisite for this is that the owners of the data agree to it. "Trustworthy data spaces are characterized by the fact that users can make their data available according to their own will and with the necessary control," says Christoph Imboden. "It works like e-banking, where people decide who may send them a digital invoice and who may not. With data spaces, one can regulate who may optimize one's energy consumption and how." He and his team have succeeded in establishing a data space in the energy sector that meets all data protection requirements.

Technology with many advantages

The approach developed by HSLU provides the infrastructure that enables actors to have equal data access based on a common code with agreements, rules, and standards. The data does not need to be stored centrally. The installation of additional hardware is also unnecessary. "This leads to significant cost savings, market dynamization, and also a reduction in the amount of data that needs to be transferred and stored," says Christoph Imboden.

High potential

The technology still needs to be further developed and adapted to the needs of Swiss stakeholders. However, the potential is enormous: if 80 percent of all Swiss households were upgraded to smart homes with data spaces, 5.32 TWh of electricity could be saved annually. This is roughly as much electricity as our trains, trams, trolleybuses, and electric cars in Switzerland consume in a year.