Factory halls, airport terminals and high-rise office buildings are often equipped with automated “anticipatory” heating systems. These work with pre-defined scenarios specially calculated for the building and help save building own­ers a great deal of heating energy. However, such an individual programming is too expensive for individual apartments and private homes.

Last summer, a group of Empa re­searchers proved for the first time that it could indeed be much simpler than that: Intelligent heating and cooling control does not necessarily have to be programmed, the system can just as easily learn to reduce costs by itself and based on the data of past weeks and months. Programming experts are no longer necessary. With this trick, the cost-saving technology will soon also be available for families and singles.

The crucial experiment took place in Empa’s research building NEST. The UMAR unit (“Urban Mining and Recycling”) offers prime conditions for this test: A large eat-in kitchen is framed on both sides by two student rooms. Both rooms are 18 square meters each. The entire window front looks east-southeast towards the morning sun. In the UMAR unit, heated or pre-­cooled water flows through a stainless steel ceiling cladding and ensures the desired room temperature. The energy used for heating and cooling can be calculated for each individual room using the respective valve positions.