Smarter hot water
Manal Rahal is an industrial PhD student within the EXACT Graduate School at Karlstad University. Her research at Thermia focuses on how heat pumps can become more energy-efficient by using data and machine learning to control hot water production based on actual demand.
Today, many heat pumps are set to always be ready, which means that water is kept hot around the clock—even when no one is using it. This leads to unnecessary energy loss, for example in the middle of the night when the entire household is asleep. Although the energy savings in a single household may seem small, the impact becomes significant when the solution is scaled up. With millions of heat pumps in Europe, the research shows how smarter use of existing technology can contribute to substantial sustainability gains.
The EXACT Industrial Graduate School is funded through grants from the Knowledge Foundation (KK Foundation).