Telia : IoT speeds up effort to reduce energy consumption in challenging times

"There is a saying that the best kWh is the one never consumed. This was true before energy prices started to spike, but even more so today, when companies are trying to tackle increasing costs and environmental impacts at the same time", says Kristofer Ågren, Head of Product IoT and Data Insights at Telia Company.

This week the world is drawing attention to the UN Sustainable Development Goals, adopted by world leaders in 2015. Today most of the goals are challenged by effects of recent and ongoing crises such as the pandemic, climate change and impacts of the war in Ukraine. In this context, technology is no silver bullet but, in several cases, it can mitigate negative impacts and accelerate action needed, especially related to SDG 9 and SDG 11, which are particularly pertinent when it comes to telecommunications and ICT services opportunities to make positive contributions. The theme for SDG 9 is "Industry, innovation and infrastructure", and for SDG 11 it is "Sustainable cities and communities". For both, securing more efficient use of resources will be key to the transformation needed.

The EU has established that buildings account for 40 percent of energy consumption in cities and 36 percent of CO2 emissions. Moreover, digital solutions could increase public transport ridership in the Nordics and Baltics by 18 percent, significantly reducing the number of cars on roads. Telia supports its customers in both areas today.

Telia estimates that in 2021, its IoT solutions enabled energy reductions of an estimated 800 GWh, which was equivalent of the annual electricity consumption of 90,000 households in Sweden. The prediction is that the demand for solutions that enable such reductions will only grow. The technology is available but will be further scaled and developed with the help of 5G, which Telia is currently rolling out across its Nordic and Baltic footprint.

According to Telia's report Digitalization of buildings 50-80 percent of building owners' total costs are from operations and maintenance. Digitalization in general and IoT-enabled solutions and data insights in particular, are enablers to address this. The report further establishes that the challenges for property owners today are that most systems are locked into silos, there is a lack of data insights to combat resource and energy waste, and real-estate owners often lack an open digitalization platform to collect, store and consolidate the building data for visualization and insights. Telia's Smart Building offering with IoT, data insights and real-estate IT solutions are helping them to optimize their operations. The solutions also include monitoring of indoor climate, indoor air quality, room presence in the building as well as connected water leak detection in apartments. These are solutions that enable real-time insights and analytics to optimize building operations and management and increase comfort and security for its owners and tenants.

Examples of services here are Eco Driving, smart heating, real-time journey information, smart ticketing and Crowd Insights. As an example, Telia's Eco Driving service for drivers cuts up to 12 percent of fuel consumption - and its associated cost and CO2 emissions.

You can read more about Telia's solutions for Smart Buildings here, and about Smart public Transport here. Please get in touch with us if you want support in your sustainability efforts.