The heat pump’s spot-price electricity control function has met my expectations

Ground source heat was the obvious choice for Eetu Lukkari’s new detached house. Choosing a heat pump for the house, which was completed in winter 2021, was also easy: it would be a Gebwell Aries ground source heat pump, manufactured less than 50 kilometres from the house. And when Eetu was offered the chance to join a pilot project in autumn 2022 to control the heat pump according to the electricity spot price, it was clear he had made the right choice.

The Lukkari family and their dog live in Hiltulanlahti, Kuopio. Their detached house and garage have a combined heated area of 212 square metres. When the family of five came to decide on a heating system, ground source heat was the obvious choice. “We also considered an air/water heat pump, but we had already made our minds up. We used ground source heat in our previous detached house and had only good experiences with it,” says Eetu Lukkari.

Pipeco Talotekniikka Oy did the plumbing and ventilation work in the new house. When they presented the ground source heat pump made in Leppävirta and the Gebwell Smart mobile app used to control it, Lukkari was impressed with the device’s advanced features.

When the family changed from a fixed-price electricity contract to a spot-price contract in October, Lukkari learned about a new pilot project involving a spot-price electricity control feature for the Aries heat pump. Spot-price electricity control regulates the heat pump’s heating function according to the electricity spot price, scheduling consumption at the times when the price is lowest. Lukkari had previously controlled the heat pump using the scheduling features of the Gebwell Smart app. However, he says that this required almost daily adjustments to the schedule.

Lukkari estimates that the spot-price electricity control feature has led to electricity savings of about twenty per cent on the cost of running the heat pump. In December, the electrical energy consumed by the heat pump for heating would have cost EUR 202.37 at the average spot price. The cost with Gebwell Smart spot-price control was EUR 165.21. This is a saving of EUR 37.16 on the electricity bill.*

According to Lukkari, spot-price electricity control has worked exactly as he expected. “The heat pump’s spot-price electricity control feature has worked exactly as I expected. The indoor temperature has fluctuated by no more than one degree, and none of us has noticed a difference,” says Eetu. “The only downside to spot-price electricity control is that I no longer monitor the heat pump every day – the heat pump’s automation features take care of it for me,” laughs Eetu.

Read more about spot-price electricity control for heat pumps

* The calculation is based on the Gebwell Smart spot-price electricity interface, which states the optimised price of the electrical energy consumed for heating and the spot price. The figures do not include energy transmission costs or the energy company’s margin on the electricity bill.