Hjørring Municipality manages the energy consumption of more than 150 sites with Ento. 

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With 64,000 inhabitants, Danish municipality Hjørring may not be the largest city in Denmark but it certainly is one with some of the most ambitious climate goals. Until 2030, the municipality wants to reduce its CO2 emissions by 86% compared to 1990. To reach the objective, the city’s energy managers are using Ento’s AI-based software solution – and are getting the municipality’s employees on board.

Starting out with 145 sites in December 2022, the municipality successively added more buildings to the platform over time. Today, Anders Bindslev Rask, energy manager at Hjørring Municipality, manages 152 buildings with an annual electricity consumption of 9,092 MWh with the help of Ento.

His track record is impressive. In his first year working for the municipality, he and his team saved the city an astonishing 605 MWh in electricity alone. This equals savings of DKK 1,000,000! 

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Prioritisation is the key feature for Hjørring’s building managers.

Thanks to Ento analysing the vast amounts of data and putting together a comprehensive overview in form of a prioritised list, Hjørring’s energy managers can quickly see where their actions will have the biggest impact. And which ones will ultimately create the most value in form of reduced consumption as well as emissions.

“Before using Ento, we didn't have a prioritisation tool – that's the key word here. Ento allows us to prioritise buildings that either have a very high or significantly increased consumption,” Anders Binderslev Rask says.

Apart from energy consumption data, Ento’s system automatically takes a wide range of external variables, such as weather data, into account. By combining these with the consumption profile, the algorithms behind the platform automatically get to “understand” the individual building’s energy performance – and thereby detect anomalies and changes which require action. Therefore, no manual configuration and maintenance of alarms are needed.

Another big benefit, according to Anders Binderslev Rask, is the fact that finding the source of an issue has gotten way more simple since Ento’s energy advisor is assisting the team. The baseload and peak analysis make it easier to determine the problem in a building.

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Ento’s energy advisor supports a team of energy experts. 

To implement energy optimisation measures, Hjørring Municipality relies on an internal team of energy experts. In their weekly meeting, the team checks Ento’s current analysis of their buildings and the automatic alarms that have come up since their last meeting. They then choose the sites they want to improve next. For some buildings, Ento has revealed surprising consumption patterns the energy managers then tried to explain using their knowledge of the building's physics and thermodynamics.

“Even if you don’t have this kind of expertise, Ento helps you to quickly find out if an issue needs to be addressed now or the next time the building is renovated,” says Bindslev Rask.

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A more structured approach to using building data.

Hjørring’s team of building managers and energy experts has a tried and tested approach to optimising their buildings’ energy consumption. Firstly, the team looks at the installed meters and meter readings as well as where the meters are and how many of them. Even in a well-run municipality, data can be incomplete so it is pivotal to have all data in place before taking measures.

Hjørring’s team of building managers and energy experts has a tried and tested approach to optimising their buildings’ energy consumption. Firstly, the team looks at the installed metres and metre counts as well as where the metres are and how many of them. Even in a well-run municipality, data can be incomplete so it is pivotal to have all data in place before taking measures.

Next, the team compares the usage patterns and behaviour to the data to see if it corresponds. Only after, they decide on taking action or initiate renovations. Here, Ento helps them to determine which actions will have the greatest effect.

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How Hjørring got the municipality’s employees to support its mission.

Many tiny actions can accumulate to bring about considerable impact. Hence, the energy managers teamed up with the municipality's IT department to create an application that can display the amount of energy saved compared to the previous year – for everyone to see on screens in the buildings. By this, the city’s employees are not only reminded that their behaviour has an influence on the overall energy consumption but they can also feel like being part of Hjørring’s mission to become more climate-friendly.

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Reducing energy consumption in a central kitchen. 

One of the team’s current missions is to optimise the energy use in one of the municipality’s central kitchens. The kitchen space has an immense potential promising significant results. As a first step, Ole Magnussen, who is responsible for the project, had 166 56 watt lights replaced with 20 watt fluorescent tubes. An action that is estimated to save the municipality 18 MWh or DKK 45,000 annually. Furthermore, the kitchen’s ventilators now sport electric motors that can be regulated in speed, leading to projected yearly savings of 50 MWh.

A key feature on the Ento platform is that the effect of such investments can easily be calculated and verified on the system – with external variables taken into account automatically. Therefore, the energy team can check if the energy saving measures had the desired effect and test whether it makes sense to implement similar upgrades in other buildings. Furthermore, the verifications can be used for internal and external reporting.

Merely a few months and two actions into the optimisation project, more savings can be expected to happen when more measures have been implemented.

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