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Insero Live Lab - A living laboratory of the future
| Topics |
Energy management in a community of 20 single family houses in the Horsens area |
| Lead Partner / Contact information |
Insero Business Services
Andy Drysdale, e-mail: adr@insero.dk
|
| Project Partners |
SEnerCon GmbH
Develco Products
EC Network |
Work Package 2 (WP2) in the FINESCE project addresses smart consumers
and smart buildings – focussing specifically on controlling energy
production and consumption as well as managing prosumer communities. WP2
consists of one ´trial site` in Madrid, Spain and one in the Horsens
area in Denmark.The trial site in the Horsens area, also known as Insero Live Lab, involves upgrading the homes of 20 families to the intelligent home of the future with the latest technology within energy and ICT - linked together and managed via a local Smart Grid. The families will test the technologies in real life and develop them further in close cooperation with suppliers and producers/ manufacturers.
With Insero Live Lab, innovative companies and entrepreneurs alike are presented with a unique opportunity to have their products and services demonstrated in a real world setting, with real life end-users and with a specific market in mind.
The result is new business opportunities, new projects and new knowledge about the energy and IT solutions of the future, and how they function together in practice. The living laboratory thus forms a strong foundation for further development and growth.
Insero Live Lab is established in the region between Horsens, Hedensted, Juelsminde and Vejle North - Insero Horsens’ geographical area.
Here, the families will test the mutual interaction of the technologies as well as their coherence with the entire energy system. The 20 homes are all situated in Insero’s local area, but a selection criterion is that they are outside the collective heating supply.
The houses will be equipped with:
- A heat pump connected to a hydronic heating system
- A solar heating system
- Photovoltaic cells
- A complete ”Home Automation” system for control of indoor climate and comfort
- A charging box for an electric vehicle
- An electric vehicle (leasing)
- A broadband Internet connection
While tests are taking place, the families will have access to live information about market prices, weather forecasts, production and consumption forecasts, etc. This happens via an intelligent IT-cloud system, through which utility companies, suppliers and other third parties can also interact with the different houses. The expectation is that the new equipment combined with presentation of useful information will influence the families’ behaviour and energy consumption in a positive way, and that the user interface to the overall Smart Grid will thus be developed in a way that the families find easy and simple to use.
Finally, the families will not only test the technologies and services. They will also help develop them further in close cooperation with suppliers and producers/manufacturers, and as a result they represent the ‘prosumers’ of the future - a combination of an energy producer and consumer.
The families will benefit from participating, partly through lower monthly energy costs combined with improved indoor climate and comfort, partly through the exhilarating experience it is to be part of a new project, thereby influencing the development of future technologies and their real-life uses.
Development platform for companies
In addition to the family benefits, Insero Live Lab offers a series of new opportunities for local and national companies and entrepreneurs. A living laboratory is characterized by being a place or an area, where ‘real people’ use, test and evaluate new technologies and services, and where the technologies play a natural part in these people’s everyday lives. This provides valuable data about how the families actually use the technologies in their everyday lives, and how they can be improved, so that even more people may benefit from them.
As a result, Insero Live Lab will serve as one large demonstration and development area, where local, national and international manufacturers and suppliers will have the opportunity to test, develop and demonstrate their products, technologies and services – with the aim of maturing these products for the market and for creating and generating new/more business. Likewise, it will also be possible to test new business models.
Generally, a living lab is a powerful way to demonstrate technologies and their interaction in practice. Here, the users of the future are at the centre of a co-creation innovation process, meaning that new knowledge and ideas for products or services are developed with users, based on actual user needs. This results in a dynamic development, where both the users and the market are part of the development process from the very beginning.
For further information, follow the link to the Insero Live Lab Website and read the Horsens trial site feature in the March issue of the FI-PPP newsletter "Future Internet News", including the interview with Andy Drysdale (CEO Insero Business Services)Further information:
The Consolidated Trial Description represents the first public deliverable in the FINESCE project. It gives an overview of the infrastructures being used for the FINESCE field trials.
