Fortum, a leading clean-energy company headquartered in Finland, has launched a new district heating management service based on a solution by Leanheat. The service, Lämpöpilotti, offers building owners a heat consumption management solution based on artificial intelligence and sensors. On average in Finland, it reduces district heating costs some 10 percent and, at the same time, improves living comfort. This service is available to all housing companies in Finland that use water-based heating systems.

District heating costs are cut by decreasing peak power, avoiding unnecessary overheating and balancing heating more accurately between residences. Proactive artificial intelligence heats the residences in anticipation of the peak moment and, respectively, decreases heating power when hot water is requiring more power. The service also adjusts heating in residences based on real detected indoor temperatures and weather predictions. By using the service, housing companies are able to improve indoor air quality, save money and make housing maintenance easier. Residents can enjoy a more stable indoor air temperature and follow and participate in the management of their own indoor air quality.

Fortum and Leanheat have signed an agreement to continue their collaboration from the pilot project to permanent use. Fortum and Leanheat started their collaboration in a developmental project testing smart heating solutions in 40 different apartment buildings and 2,000 individual homes. The collaboration included Espoon Asunnot, TA-Yhtymä and Järvenpään Mestariasunnot in Finland.

“We want to offer residents more than just energy.  Fortum is committed to improving the efficiency and customization of district heating over the long run in close collaboration with our clients. The cornerstones of this Lämpöpilotti service were to enhance indoor air quality for residents and increase comfort of living. And for housing companies the service offers savings in costs as they have better control over heating. We also believe at Fortum that we can develop the optimization of district heating production in a way that saves environmental and economic resources. Residential buildings can work as virtual power plants and through that take part in the movement against climate change,” said Fortum’s New Business Development Manager, Timo Aaltonen.

“Until now Leanheat has been a service for larger and commercial housing companies. The collaboration with Fortum has enabled our services to be used also by individual housing companies.  We are sure that housing companies value Fortum’s strong brand and reliability as a service provider with a proven and trusted track record. The collaboration with Fortum has been extremely smooth – I believe that together we can develop best practice heating solutions on a global scale,” comments Jukka Aho, CEO of Leanheat Oy.

Additional information:

Timo Aaltonen, New Business Development Manager, Fortum Technology and New Ventures, tel. +358 50 454 3475
Jukka Aho, CEO, Leanheat Oy, tel.  +358 44 375 6044

Fortum 
Fortum is a leading clean energy company that provides its customers with electricity, heating and cooling as well as smart solutions to improve resource efficiency. We want to engage our customers and society in joining the change for a cleaner world. We employ some 8,000 professionals in the Nordic and Baltic countries, Russia, Poland and India. 62% of our electricity generation is CO2 free. In 2016, our sales were EUR 3.6 billion. Fortum’s shares are listed on Nasdaq Helsinki. www.fortum.com 

Leanheat
Leanheat is an IoT solution that aims to decrease heating and maintenance expenses in residences and to make the business of district heating companies more profitable. Leanheat has been installed in over 15,000 homes in Finland and the company is now extending its business throughout Europe. Leanheat is run by a team of housing, software development and artificial intelligence professionals as well as housing companies. Danfoss, a global supplier of energy-efficient and climate-friendly solutions for selected industries, invested in the company in 2016. www.leanheat.com