Smart Price Adaption (SPA)

Lower the electricity cost with electricity price control

With Smart Price Adaption (SPA), the heat pump follows the prices on the Nord Pool / Epex – spot day-ahead electricity price markets. This can lower the variable electricity cost on your electricity bill by 5-25% (depending on spot prices, heat pump type and power, season settings etc.), because your heat pump works the most when the electricity costs the least and vice versa. To activate the electricity price control, connect to myUplink and make sure to have an hourly variable electricity contract. The heat pump receives information about the following day's electricity prices and schedules its running to optimize the price against your required heating- and hot water needs – talk about smart heating!

What is Smart Price Adaption?

A heat pump usually responds to the room or outside temperature. When there is a heating need it gradually turns on and when it is warm enough it gradually turns off.

With SPA, the heat pump also takes notice of the electricity price before acting. In general, the electricity price is higher in the daytime when most people are using electricity, however this doesn’t mean it stays permanently high, it rises and falls with demand.

A heat pump from NIBE can take this information about electricity prices direct from the energy traders and use it to produce heating and hot water at only the lowest prices, ensuring extra money savings. For example: It starts to get cold at 16.00 and without SPA, the heat pump would start to heat your property, however when a NIBE heat pump knows that the electricity price will drop at 17.00, it can wait to start producing heat until then, without any interaction from the homeowner. It can also take care to load up heating and hot water during the early hours when the electricity price is low, pre-heating the property & domestic hot water tank (dhw) meaning less energy is used during the day. To not compromise on comfort, the heat pump makes sure to fit the demands, not lowering the energy need but moving it to cheaper hours*.

Furthermore, NIBE heat pumps have a function named Smart Control (SC), which is a function that could be used together with SPA, enabling the heat pump to learn your consumption pattern for hot water. Usually, the heat pump will heat the water tank as soon as the hot water has been used, without knowing when the next usage requirement is. A heat pump from NIBE can learn when you have finished showering and with Smart Price Adjustment knowledge of electricity prices, it can wait to re-heat the tank until later in the day when the electricity prices are lower. If you have unusual consumption patterns or have irregular water consumption, it is more difficult for the heat pump to know when it can save on the water and this function may not work correctly.

*Need a variable electricity contract for your electrical trading company.