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Solrød Forsyning lowers return temperature with RTO

Using Kamstrup's Return Temperature Optimizer (RTO), Solrød Forsyning gets help identifying errors in both old and new heating installations thus optimising the district heating network and increasing customer satisfaction.

Identifying faulty heating installations

Handling all consumer calls as part of the service

Enquiries from over 100 consumers

Return temperature lowered by 2.4°C

Solrød Forsyning - a fusion of water and heat
Solrød Forsyning was created in 2022, when Solrød Waterworks and Solrød District Heating were merged to establish a strong foundation for their close collaboration. For years, the two utilities have worked together on projects with common interests, including a database at Kamstrup to securely store their meter data and setting up antenna sites for remote meter reading. In October 2023, it was decided to gather all employees at Solrød Forsyning under one roof.

Large consumer of biogas and solar energy

At Solrød Forsyning, they believe that variety is the spice of life, so they have invested in a number of different sustainable energy sources. This means that besides natural gas and heat pumps, they have a large production of biogas and solar energy as well. For the Solrød Strand area, a large biogas engine serves more than 50% of both electricity and heat consumption. On a normal summer, their solar collector system is capable of supplying the entire district heating network in Havdrup town for up to 4 months. In addition, an accumulation tank is installed for greater flexibility.
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Certification as a prerequisite

Solrød Forsyning strives to raise the standard of the water and heat installations throughout Denmark. Among other things, this means that Hans Odder, supply manager, goes out with his installers and talks about the certification scheme to convince uncertified handymen to take a course:

"We cheer all around the certification and tell people how we screen houses before setting up a new installation, running a condition report or stuff like that. So that people know right from the beginning, what we see as a challenge in their installation before they get district heating.

"Hans Odder has witnessed far too many installations that have not been carried out correctly and as a result do not function optimally. "I'm a plumber myself, and we can solve everything," he says, "but then we realise that reality is quite different. Many of the newer installations, we saw around our neighbourhood, were not entirely well set-up."

Solrød Forsyning had enough of it, and they agreed that they would only work together with plumber companies that had certified handymen. What they didn't realise was that there was no certified plumber anywhere nearby: "It turned out that the closest one we could find was Øens Fjernvarme out on Amager. It's quite a long way from Solrød to Amager, but we've made a co-operation agreement with them, and they're the ones we recommend, even though it has of course created some uproar among the locals."

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Solrød Forsyning introduces RTO

Solrød Forsyning has already had great success using consumption data to locate faults and leaks in consumers' water installations on a weekly basis. That's why Hans Odder and his colleagues were also interested in making a similar effort in district heating:

"Unless there were obvious faults with leaks and water loss, we only sent out our annual statements describing the consumers' increased consumption followed by a penalty charge. It was a bit inappropriate, instead of that, now we can show how consumption looks during the year."

All these considerations led Solrød Forsyning, in the autumn of 2023, to sign an agreement with Kamstrup about introducing RTO to identify faulty heating installations and contact the owners. RTO (Return Temperature Optimizer) is a service solution where Kamstrup assigns one of its energy advisors to look at data from consumers' Kamstrup meters and identify malfunctioning installations that neither consumers nor the utility are aware of.

Kamstrup takes care of:

  • Monitoring the return temperature of consumers
  • Identifying installations with faults
  • Contacting installation owners about the problem
  • Follow-up on repairs
  • Checking the impact of the notifications

Return temperature is lowered by 2.4 °C
The project had to be tested and fine-tuned, but by mid-January 2024, the RTO solution was up and running. On 7 May 2024, a status meeting was held at Solrød Forsyning, where a happy and satisfied utility manager was able to report on the preliminary results of the RTO project:

"360 letters have been sent out and 110 consumers have been contacted by phone. Our latest temperature figures show that we have lowered the return temperature in our system by 2.4°C. We think that's really good considering the relatively low number of consumers we've been in contact with so far."

Hans Odder, supply manager at Solrød Utility.

RTO reveals new installations with errors

As Hans Odder explains, there is a shortage of certified handymen in and around Solrød, and this has also been evident in the results from RTO. In general, Solrød Forsyning has a fine and stable district heating network, yet there was a growing need for intervention in the newer residential areas:

"When we started with RTO, the first results were quite mind blowing. We could see that the energy advisor had the most conversations in the newest neighbourhoods. For example, 720 homes have been built in Trylleskov Strand, none of their district heating units were correctly set-up."

High satisfaction among consumers
When a faulty heating installation is detected in the MDM system, Kamstrup's energy advisor sends a personalized letter and an email via the official, Danish governmental system, called e-Boks, to the consumer with the extent of the problem and how much it could cost in penalty fees. Penalty fees, and on the other hand also deduction of heat bills, are allowed in Denmark and used by many of the district heating companies. It is based on the efficient cooling of the return temperature, and it can motivate people to improve the efficiency of their heating installations. This system is called motivationstarif in Danish. In some cases, it can be an uncomfortable confrontation, as Hans Odder explains:

"Sometimes people ask: 'why did you write a letter about it and what can we do about it? Some people initially find it an annoyance until we explain what it's all about. But no-one has gone away angry. Everyone can see the sense of it."

Hans Odder, Supply Manager at Solrød Forsyning.

Solrød Forsyning has accelerated the optimisation of their district heating network with the help of RTO. Even though some consumers take this approach as a finger pointing, the method succeeds to attract attention followed by high customer satisfaction:

"This morning, a customer sent a bouquet of flowers to the office in Amager as a thank you for getting their heating under control. Their water and heating had become both better and cheaper, and this was based on an RTO initiated enquiry," says Hans Odder.

RTO frees up more time in utility’s everyday life

Optimising the district heating network is not necessarily a time-consuming task. On the contrary. At Solrød Forsyning, RTO has created more time in everyday life than before: "RTO has definitely taken some of the work away regarding some of the lines that always showed up in our yearly report. Inquiries we receive about the whys and the hows are now gone." says Hans Odder.

To Kamstrup medarbejdere foran computer
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In practical terms, the arrangement works in such a way that Kamstrup's energy advisor is connected to Solrød Forsyning's phone number, as Hans Odder explains: "When you call district heating here, you have four options: accounting, convert to district heating, technology and our heating consultant. If you choose the heating consultant, you end up with Kamstrup's energy advisor without even realising it." In this way, RTO runs as a fully automatic and independent project alongside Solrød Forsyning’s normal tasks.

Impeccable collaboration with good communication

As a central part of the RTO solution, Kamstrup communicates regularly with Solrød Forsyning to keep them updated on the status of the running service. In this context, Hans Odder says that the close co-operation has been particularly important:

"The regular follow-up meetings on Teams have been very good. I've also noticed this on Frank, who is our coordinator for the main projects. RTO and meter replacements. It's worked flawlessly and you can sense it on him."

Besides the RTO service, Kamstrup and Solrød Forsyning have also collaborated on other projects, and if you ask Hans Odder, it has been a very positive experience overall: "We have been working with Kamstrup on many things in the last 6 months: antenna sites, RTO and meter replacements, and, I have to say, it has worked super well."

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