YourTRIBE

The Client.

With YourTRIBE being one of the premium luxury Student Accommodation brands in the UK, it’s no surprise they favour innovation and environmental responsibility. With a mantra of ‘innovate, then elevate’ they’re an ideal client for a PropTech brand like Utopi. In the winter of 2024, they kicked off a new campaign with Utopi’s Smart TRV’s in their South Bermondsey PBSA asset in London, and saw their gas consumption reduce significantly.

This case study, along with others, prove that Utopi Smart TRVs can materially reduce energy consumption in an overheated gas asset by circa 1.5-3kWh per bed.

The Strategy.

Data, insights and asset performance optimisation were the key focus in this instance, and by enhancing insights and empowering YourTRIBE with remote controls, it would help transform their heating emissions. Our data strategy was to use Utopi Multisensor data to assess temperature distributions, we would then analyse this alongside other factors like occupation and external temperature to gauge impact. This way we would get a holistic view of the asset’s consumption:

• Multisensors: Acquired daily avg. bedroom temperatures.
• PIRs: Acquired occupancy for each bedroom.
• External temperature data was used to select comparison periods with a similar external climate.

And the control regimes we would implement via The Utopi Platform to reduce outliers and monitor progress would be:

• TRV temperature limited at maximum 22-24°C.
• TRV set point stepped down to 20°c after 4-5 hours and to 15°C after 24 hours.

The Process.

With centralised controls via The Utopi Platform, it was key for YourTRIBE to reduce their overall site temperature during the heating season and reduce overall gas consumption, but not in such an invasive way that their residents would feel the effect. With the ability to set maximum temperatures (22-24°C) and with step down functions to reduce the room temperature when unoccupied, these functions would allow their site team to manage the asset’s heating in real-time and remotely at scale, but also keep resident needs in mind. Site teams also had the ability to set exceptions via The Utopi Platform for residents who requested warmer temperatures or had special health needs was essential.

This alongside the Utopi Impact Team’s support in turning the data into actionable insights, the YourTRIBE team were armed with real-time data, the ability to react in real-time, spot outliers and reduce energy waste on site.

Key KPIs were set to assess impact:

• Reduction in mean room temperature.
• Reduction in the percentage of overheated rooms i.e. > 24°C.
• Change in the distribution of room temperatures.
• Estimate of kWh reduction based on energy meter readings.

The Results.

We assessed the impact of Smart TRVs installed across all 249 rooms at YourTRIBE’s South Bermondsey. When comparing all rooms Before and After installation using weeks with similar external temperatures:

• Standard TRV Weeks 9-12 2024
• Smart TRV Weeks 45-48 2024