Helen, the Helsinki energy company, is building a more sustainable district heating network with Gradyent. By developing a Digital Twin of the district heating system, Helen can optimise the heat production and improve sustainability.

Helen is the district heating utility of Helsinki and aims to achieve 100% carbon neutrality in their energy production by 2030, while phasing out the coal plants by 2024. About 90% of the city of Helsinki is heated with district heat and about 600,000 Helsinki residents live in an apartment block heated with district heat. With the smart use of digital, Helen is making their network future-proof by Gradyent’s Digital Twin.

Building a Digital Twin of the Helen heating system

Hervé Huisman, CEO Gradyent: “We are very proud to work in partnership with Helen to transform the Helsinki district heating network, achieving a more sustainable and operationally efficient way of producing energy. The digital twin of the district heating network will make it possible to analyse concrete scenarios, optimise supply versus demand, identify network bottlenecks and study the embedding of new assets.”

Helen partnered with Gradyent to make a Digital Twin of the heating network. The Digital Twin creates a detailed and realistic physical view of the network that is updated constantly with smart sensor data, source data and forecasts. It finds the optimum balance between flow and temperature and thereby ensures that minimal energy is wasted, customers get the required amount of heat and the heat-pumps operate optimally.

Timo Aaltonen, SVP Operations and Asset Management Helen: “The more accurately we know, for example, what kinds of temperatures or pressure variations there are in the heating network, the more clearly we can optimise heat production and ensure heat supplies to all customers when the production of our major plants is phased out. This way we will be prepared for the end of coal combustion at Hanasaari in 2023 and in Salmisaari in 2024.”

Would you like to learn more?

Helen has published a news article about why and how they are using the Digital Twin.