“Dumb Buildings” Will Face Sky-High Electricity Bills from 2022

Do you live in a "dumb building"? Come the new year, your electricity bills will go through the roof. Just a few days ago, the government introduced a new network tariff model, and from 1 January 2022 this will have major financial consequences for everyone living in a "dumb building".

So far we have had a fixed network tariff, but from 1 January it becomes power-based. That means you pay in relation to how much electricity you use simultaneously. Say you come home from work, put the car on charge, turn on the cooker, and switch on the lights and heating — you will most likely see a significant increase both in the actual electricity price and soon also in the network tariff.

You are smarter than your building

A number of electricity companies have already shown that it is possible — and simple — to reduce energy costs by using energy to a greater extent when it is cheap. Norwegian company Tibber, for example, guarantees a 20 percent lower electricity price if you use smart charging with an Easee charger. They can do this because they control the charging to occur when electricity prices are at their lowest.

Many people think that hourly electricity pricing is something that will arrive at some point in the future, but it has been here for a long time already. Today (13 June), electricity was in fact 4,850%(!) more expensive at 6 pm in the evening than at 12 noon.

That means if you charged your electric car at 6 pm instead of noon, your charging cost was 4,850% higher.

How does this work in practice?

Let us look at underfloor heating cables. If you have a mountain cabin, you know it can quickly take two days before the bathroom floor is warm. This is because the concrete has to heat up before the floor becomes warm. The advantage of this is that the concrete also retains heat, which in turn means the potential for smart management is significant.

Currently, underfloor heating cables work such that if you leave the door ajar and the temperature drops by 0.5 degrees, the cables automatically switch on and run at full power until the desired temperature is reached — regardless of whether electricity prices are at their highest at that moment. With smart management of the heating cables, you can allow a slightly larger temperature drop and instead heat the floor up a bit later in the day when electricity may cost only a fraction of the price. A 0.5-degree temperature drop is not noticeable, so it does not affect perceived comfort. Nobody notices anything — except your wallet, which gets a much more comfortable ride.

Now we are getting the big change!

Many will no doubt think that the network tariff already eats up half the electricity bill anyway, so why bother saving a few kroner by adjusting this? But it has now been decided — new network tariff models will apply from 01.01.2022 — and this dramatically changes the situation.

While we have previously had a fixed network tariff, the tariff will now also be based on power — i.e. how much energy you use simultaneously. This means that if you come home from work, charge the car, turn on the cooker, and switch on the lights and heating, you will most likely see a noticeable increase in both the electricity price and the network tariff.

Will we all become that guy from the Rema 1000 commercial?

So far, it has largely been those with a particular interest in technology who have adopted smart homes, and it is no wonder when the costs of smart gadgets often take many years to recoup. The last time the author calculated the cost/benefit for their own smart home, the payback period was 110 years — though perhaps not everyone has 1,417 sensors in their home.

With the new network model, many more people will likely discover the benefits of making their home smarter. Smart home components becoming cheaper and cheaper makes this far more accessible. New household appliances are already smart, and so are the charging stations. In addition, we see electricity companies releasing apps that allow you to install the solutions with a few taps.

Could there also be incentives to build differently?

Perhaps the new network tariff model will also be the incentive we need to build smarter and to think about synergies between different buildings? Perhaps we will see a housing association sharing its power capacity with the neighbouring commercial building. There is enormous potential here as the "heartbeats" of the two are completely different.

Perhaps solar panels will finally become a good investment? We have so far seen that installing solar panels on private roof tops in many cases has not been a good enough investment due to high upfront costs. But what if solar energy could help us better balance our energy use? Or perhaps it is now that the batteries in our cars will team up with our buildings and return cheaply charged energy when electricity costs are high? When it comes to solar panels, there are alternatives to purchasing through companies such as Edea and Otovo, which make the whole thing both smart and sustainable.

We go absolutely wild when the petrol price drops by 10 percent, but when the electricity price is at a ‘95 percent sale’, very few people know about it or take advantage!

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