In late 2021, Vasakronan, Sweden’s largest property owner, participated in the Stockholm Flex power market for the second year in a row. The achievement was accomplished by leveraging ProptechOS in three key areas:
- for machine learning to predict future electricity consumption,
- to predict the minimum possible reduction of electricity to keep mission critical equipment running during peak hours and
- to calculate the possible savings of using the flex market.
Hence, Vasakronan was able to achieve desired responsiveness in power consumption for electrical vehicle charging stations and power consuming systems in the connected buildings. For Vasakronan the project was about managing and predicting energy consumption using machine learning, however it was also about mitigating power and capacity shortage for the whole capital city. Ulf Näslund, Head of R&D at Vasakronan, was pleased with the project “We have not needed to invest in a lot of new hardware, instead it has been about connecting different IT systems to the available trading system. In total we got 180 kW which we can sell on the flexibility market.“
“We have not needed to invest in a lot of new hardware, instead it has been about connecting different IT systems to the available trading system. In total we got 180 kW which we can sell on the flexibility market.“ Ulf Näslund (Head of R&D), Vasakronan
Goal
The project entailed connecting sixteen of Vasakronan’s buildings to the Stockholm Flex energy demand response market through ProptechOS. Leveraging the ProptechOS application marketplace, Vasakronan could collaborate with Entelios (an energy broker) to aggregate their energy consumers and make them available on the Stockholm Flex market (a market that enables power grid companies to buy capacity from end-consumers).
Solution
Apart from providing the connectivity of each electrical vehicle charging station to the flex market in a way which significantly reduced the number of integrations needed, ProptechOS also provided support for value-added services such as predictive modeling of future electricity consumption. Based on stored historical data of electrical usage of charging stations and buildings in ProptechOS, a predictive model of future consumption was calculated for the Vasakronan portfolio. The model also predicted the minimum possible reduction of electricity to keep mission critical equipment running during peak demand and calculate the possible savings of using the flex market. Combined, the functionality supported Vasakronan’s capacity planning and demand forecasting, further reducing costs.
The project unfolded by adopting ProptechOS as a coordinating platform which allowed Vasakronan to create digital twins of their energy consuming equipment such as heating pumps, ventilation, and electrical vehicle charging stations. The digital twins were then connected to Entelios and further to the Stockholm Flex market. ProptechOS interoperability ensured that integrations between the electrical vehicle chargers and other systems to Entelios would be in place for future expansion of the scope of devices to be connected, reducing the time and cost of implementation due to the significant reduction of needed integrations.
Results
Across the sixteen buildings’ systems the enabled capacity of power reduction – the “flex capacity” – provided to the electrical grid was 180 kW.
For Vasakronan the project had a twofold impact – more efficient power consumption management, which could result in lower purchasing price of electricity and secondly, mitigating capacity shortage in Stockholm city by optimizing consumption.
Vasakronan’s continuous focus on sustainability leveraging ProptechOS contributed to the Sergelhusen building in central Stockholm to achieve the world’s third highest LEED sustainability score.
Emphasis for Vasakronan has been to assure that the solution is applicable and scalable to the rest of their portfolio by reusing integrations which minimizes time-to-market and costs to connect additional buildings and systems such as electrical vehicle chargers.
Learn more about ProptechOS here.
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