Electricity Saving Trust enthusiastic about Nokia Home Control Center

“The decision by Nokia to develop a Home Control Center on an open platform, which enables it to communicate with the Trust’s My  E-Home and other open systems, is significant for consumers. This is particularly the case at a time when there is a considerable political focus on saving electricity, remote metering and climate improvements. The control center produced by Nokia ensures consumers that the unit will operate together with all the wireless equipment and devices recommended by the Trust,” says Göran Wilke, Head of Secretariat at the Danish Electricity Saving Trust.  

The Trust expects that Nokia’s new initiative will pave the way for even greater growth in the market for wireless equipment and devices which can control and monitor the home, thereby allowing consumers to save considerable amounts of electricity.

Consumers can save energy and reduce their carbon footprints
Nokia Home Control Center can control and monitor electricity consumption in the home, switch appliances on and off, measure the temperature and humidity, and facilitate camera-based home surveillance. Future developments will allow an alarm, heating, ventilation and other systems in the home to be connected to the platform.

“We have seen the growth potential in this market. The Trust’s My E-Home concept makes the Danish market particularly interesting. “We  believe that Danish consumers will be able to make savings on their electricity bills and reduce their carbon footprints by controlling their energy consumption and other services via the Home Control Center,” says Toni Sormunen, Director of the Smart Home project at  Nokia .

Desire to develop green IT is important for the climate
Collectively, Danes will be able to save up to 3 million KWh by managing their homes intelligently, which is equivalent to 1.5 million tons of CO2 – or nearly half a ton of CO2 per household. The combination of My E-Home and intelligent control can therefore help Denmark to take a big step on the way to a leading position in intelligent home control and energy savings in the months up to the United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP15 Copenhagen, in 2009.

“The Trust’s mission is to help consumers save electricity. But it is equally important to encourage producers, wholesalers and the retail trade to develop and offer energy efficient products. This is why we are delighted to know that the business world is becoming aware of demands by consumers for wireless equipment in their homes. We can already observe a considerable interest in the market for the opportunities provided by My E-Home for companies to develop products for the intelligent home,” adds Göran Wilke.

My E-Home – backbone of the intelligent home
The current version of the My E-Home platform on the Internet was launched by the Trust on 1 October, 2008. An improved version, including better drawing tools was launched on 20 December. A heat calculator will be added early February 2009.

My E-Home is an interactive web portal offering consumers the opportunity to calculate their household energy consumption, receive advice on possible savings, and control and monitor their indoor environments by managing their energy consumption appropriately.ome. My E-Home functions as a totally private and secure home archive and allows data from Danish public registers to be automatically transferred to the program.

At the same time My E-Home is the backbone for the intelligent home. Because the market for intelligent wireless is growing rapidly, the Trust is promoting a common standard, Z-Wave, which ensures that the technologies can communicate together. The Nokia Home Control Center is a major step in this direction.

Facts about the Danish Electricity Saving Trust
The Danish Electricity Saving Trust is an independent trust led by a Board under the Danish Ministry of Climate and Energy. The Trust was established in 1997 with the purpose of promoting electricity savings in the household and public sectors. The Trust is financed by a special electricity savings charge of EUR 0.0008/kWh payable by households and the public sector. The total annual proceeds amount to just under EUR 13 million.

For further information please contact:
Göran Wilke, Head of Secretariat, Danish Electricity Saving Trust, Tel.: +45 33 95 58 01, Mobile: +45 21 20 55 58, E-mail: gw@elsparefonden.dk, or Anders Hjorth Jensen, Project Manager, Mobile: +45 41 18 84 31, E-mail: anhj@elsparefonden.dk