Nordic Propeye: Energy efficiency. Improved.

GETTING THE DATA

“You need to provide input to control systems,” says Carl Aspenberg, CEO of Nordic Propeye, a company that specialises in offering solutions for improving the energy efficiency of buildings. And by input, Carl is referring primarily to sensors. That’s where Propeye’s work starts: installing sensors and collecting data on a building’s performance across a range of factors such as temperature, humidity, CO₂ levels, and the consumption of electricity, water and energy. The company then quality-assures and analyses the data and offers solutions in the form of improvements to the buildings. Meanwhile, regression analysis and artificial intelligence are constantly working on the data to optimise performance, factoring in things like energy prices and the building’s temperature shifts. “There’s a lot of potential for improving energy efficiency and savings,” Carl adds. “We look at cooling, heating and ventilation but also water, energy, and electricity consumption. You can also have improved air quality and you can bring your energy consumption and expenditure down as well. It helps buildings classify as green, and that in turn increases their value.”

FROM SENSORS TO SERVICE PACKAGE

The company’s main products are the CO2 sensor, energy/water/electricity meters, connectivity solutions and, foremost, a state-of-the-art platform for collecting and analysing sensors and metre data. More recently, they have been packaging products together in the form of services. “In order to grow, we needed external financing,” Carl says, referring to an EU-guaranteed loan backed by the EIF under the InvestEU programme. “We’re now able to finance our hardware solutions as well.” The company’s interventions can generate significant savings in a very short timeframe, with savings ranging from 15-25% and a typical payback time of around 2 years. With the urgency of the climate crisis, it’s not difficult to see how this offering could be very interesting.

LEAN, CLEAN AND GREEN

The company has connected more than 100,000 flats in Sweden, with over 180,000 sensors and meters installed and measured. They are also monitoring and managing more than 2.0 million m2 of office/commercial building space, making its own dent in the climate challenge, one sensor at a time. “The main challenge we have relates to ageing infrastructure, particularly when you can’t really communicate with it,” Carl explains. But the company is pressing ahead regardless. “We’ve made it our mission to help our customer to make their real estate and condominiums lean, clean & green,” he adds, as the company is also looking to include charging stations in their offering.

Location: Stockholm, Sweden

Financial intermediary: SEB

SME: Nordic Propeye

Sector: energy

Financing purpose: product development

EIF financing: InvestEU