Loka Brunn finds patterns in energy, occupancy and temperature
CHALLENGES & GOALS
Loka Brunn located in Grythyttan has an interesting history with roots dating back to the 18th century. Today they run a hotel & spa facility and carry a history worth experiencing. Loka Brunn wanted to start measuring her energy consumption in order to know how energy efficient the various houses and rooms are and how energy consumption is affected by both the temperature and occupancy of the rooms. With the help of DAZOQ EI, Loka Brunn follows up energy consumption at the incoming level for the various houses they have. The goal is to gain a better understanding of their energy consumption in detail and to be able to make fact-based decisions in the future regarding investments and energy efficiency measures.
ACTIONS
Via DAZOQ EI, they collect energy consumption data of the various houses. That curve is then superimposed over the occupancy curve and the temperature curve to find patterns in how energy consumption is affected by the degree of occupancy versus outside temperature. DAZOQ EI also helps them see the average value of the different houses, which means they can see which houses are the most energy efficient. Something that Daniel Hagsten, sales manager at Loka Brunn sees as extremely valuable.
"Our houses have a wide variety of history, which means they have different heating methods. A house with direct-acting electricity can have twice as much energy consumption with just a few degrees of temperature difference. It will of course be extra interesting to see now that the winter and cold is coming."
Loka Brunn has also started measuring the energy efficiency in the restaurant. They do this by tracking the kWh consumed per meal served. Energy consumption in itself is difficult to compare over time, as it can give incorrect indications if, for example, you compare energy consumption on a day when the restaurant is closed vs. a day when they have many guests. By taking into account what happens in the building (how many meals they serve), they track energy efficiency instead of energy consumption to make it more comparable over time.
RESULTS & INSIGHTS
"Something that we could see via DAZOQ EI and that is interesting to follow is that one of our larger houses, spa facility that we built in 2011 and expanded in 2019, does not draw as much electricity as we thought. We thought it would draw very a lot because there is xx m3 of water being pumped around and heated to 36 degrees. It was an unexpected discovery to see the difference in energy efficiency when comparing our old houses with old technology compared to the modern technology of the spa facility."
FUTURE OUTLOOK
"We will continue to collect data so that we can be more confident in the conclusions we draw. Another exciting insight will be what the energy consumption of a very old house looks like. There we have changed the heating method from direct-acting electricity to a water-borne system with air heat pump. If the monitoring of the energy consumption shows that this is an energy-efficient way of heating, then it will be much easier to be able to argue for changing the remaining houses that are heated with direct acting electricity to this way instead. If you have the facts, you can do exact calculations of how much you save on replacing the remaining heating and how quickly you get back the investment in saving electricity."
At the turn of the year, Loka Brunn will add more measuring points to be able to extract even more knowledge. They partly want to implement water meters because even that consumption – together with the increasing costs – makes it important to follow up and improve efficiency, and then they also want to bring in more electricity meters that can be set up at the machine/component level to gain more knowledge there. Daniel sees the future brightly and thinks it will be exciting to continue to see what value DAZOQ EI can create for them.
DAZOQ helps companies increase their energy efficiency and sustainability through real-time machine-level energy monitoring. Through effective communication of savings potential, we can together contribute to a more cost-effective, resource-efficient and energy-efficient future. Contact us and we'll gladly tell you more.