A number of homes in Stavanger have been recruited to demonstrate smart solutions for home automation and energy management. The main objective was to integrate ICT-based solutions for efficient energy use through smart gateways (data hubs) for use in both residential and public buildings.

Most of the 100 homes had smart lighting and heating control installed, and a separate screen in the home where the occupants can control their energy use and also make use of open data (traffic information etc.) for decision support. Anonymised data from the homes is continuously sent to a dedicated cloud database at the University of Stavanger (UiS) and helps to gather together the findings generated by the project.

Four years of pilot running in real homes provide unique data for this. Lyse can also be better prepared for the changes that are underway in the energy market.

Lyse has also been given the opportunity to try out smart solutions in buildings owned and operated by the municipality of Stavanger. Kvaleberg school and Bergåstjern nursing home were chosen for this. These are also located in the current project area. At the school, Lyse installed energy management and air quality measurement in the gym, while Bergåstjern had lighting and heating control installed in 8 rooms in the rehabilitation department.

For Bergåstjern, this makes it easier for the staff to cater for residents who are often sensitive to temperature fluctuations..

Lyse has described and analyzed the infrastructure for charging electric vehicles (EV) in the project area. This coincided with a sharp increase in the need for charging and with a strategic process within Lyse to position the company in the charging market of the future.

As well as carrying out the analyses, Lyse installed ICT-based smart charging solutions in 10 of the pilot homes. These provide data on usage and time variations at regular intervals. Among other things, this has a bearing on the future infrastructure for electrical energy distribution, but it will also provide valuable data on people’s changing power consumption patterns, as many owners of electric vehicles prefer to recharge at home.

The Stavanger-based charging company Zaptec has been an important supplier in this part of the project.

Blink is part of Lyse’s contribution to the Triangulum project, and provides a new and seamless service that communicates between smartphones, tablets and the biggest and best screen in the home – the TV.

Blink’s journey through Triangulum started as a broad-based video communication solution for healthcare, training and meeting purposes. However, serious technical issues were found with the solution that had been chosen, which raised the need to redirect the process and find a completely different and more forward-looking technological solution with less emphasis on hardware and more of a web-based approach. . The video solution provides a high level of security – as secure as ID authentication in banks – and complies with data protection law.

When the follower cities of Sabadell, Prague and Leipzig started to examine which parts of the activity in the Lighthouse cities they could take on and adapt in their own cities, the answer in Sabadell and in Prague was Blink. Both cities needed this type of video solution in their care services. So the testing in Stavanger was focused on meeting these needs, and Blink was one of the few solutions in Triangulum to be demonstrated in the follower cities. Blink works very well between family and friends and, when the service is fully developed, will also support conferencing involving users sitting in different places.

The aim is to combine mobility, ICT and energy considerations by:

• Reducing the need for travel
• Increasing quality of life for residents
• Improving and simplifying care provision