Recording and billing heating, water and electricity consumption for individual residential units on a usage-based basis involves a huge administrative and financial burden for property owners and managers. That is why Qivalo, in collaboration with iteratec, has developed the first digital multi-metering platform for the fully automated recording and billing of these utility consumption figures.
For the first time, property owners, managers and tenants can view consumption figures in real time at any time using the Qivalo Cockpit. Developed by Qivalo and iteratec, Cockpit remains one of the most technologically advanced platforms on the market today. Not only does it drastically reduce the administrative burden of managing a property, but it also provides the basis for the energy-efficient optimisation of properties. After just six years, Qivalo has successfully established itself in a market with high barriers to entry.
In Germany, consumption of heating, water and electricity must be billed on a usage-based model for all tenants, even in multi-occupancy properties. The market for so-called sub-metering – that is, consumption measurement and cost allocation in the context of heating cost billing – is estimated at approximately 1.5 billion euros per year and is dominated by a handful of specialised metering service providers. It is within this market environment that Qivalo has emerged to challenge the business model of traditional players by offering automated recording, visualisation and billing of consumption data in properties.
The Qivalo Cockpit offers an intuitive, web-based platform through which property owners and managers, for the first time, have access at any time to real-time data from all main and flat meters, as well as utilities relating to the property – from heat cost allocators and water meters to electricity meters and sensors such as smoke detectors. Based on this data, Qivalo lays the groundwork for the automated generation of consumption-based bills in accordance with the Heating Costs Ordinance (HKVO).
At the same time, energy consumption analyses and comparisons between residential units and properties provide the basis for energy-efficient optimisation of the properties, e.g. through climate-adjusted consumption analyses, peak load analyses for electricity or gas consumption, or the benchmarking of different properties within a portfolio. Tenants, too, have the opportunity to optimise their consumption behaviour by viewing their current consumption data.
As the exclusive technology partner, iteratec supported the development of the Qivalo Cockpit throughout all project phases – from the initial architectural design, through the design and implementation of the portal and its functionalities, right through to ongoing operation and the handover of the live system to the client. The solution essentially consists of two components:
During the start-up phase, management focused in particular on establishing processes and organisational structures. We were able to rely on iteratec’s expertise to establish a suitable system architecture for our web-based service. We have since taken over the operation and further development of the platform ourselves with our own developers. The transition took place smoothly and without disruption. We are grateful to iteratec for their professional support during this phase and for laying this important foundation on our path to growth and success.
Key challenges during development included the high volume of data, the scalability of the application and ensuring a high level of data security.
In order to provide the required analyses for the millions of measurement values in the system whilst also accounting for retrospective changes to the data set, all calculations had to be performed anew on a daily basis. To nevertheless ensure near-real-time consumption information, the project team relied on a modular architecture and parallel data processing.
At the same time, the system needed to be scalable enough to accommodate even larger properties with an increasing number of tenancies and devices.
The portal also had to guarantee a high level of data security. This includes, on the one hand, compliance with European and German data protection standards. In this regard, care was taken to ensure that the data is hosted exclusively in Germany. On the other hand, the system was designed to prevent any manipulation of consumption data. To this end, the project team implemented an automatic plausibility check, which enables significant data discrepancies or other anomalies to be automatically flagged and investigated.
iteratec supported the company right from the start on its journey from start-up to digital champion in property management – providing assistance that went beyond purely technological issues. For example, a solution architect helped to design and evaluate the technical aspects of the business idea even before the company was founded.
During the development process, the use of agile development methods was key to achieving a short time-to-market and enabling the application to be flexibly adapted to changing customer requirements.
By combining metering and sub-metering within a smart meter gateway-based platform, Qivalo creates a fully managed system for the automated collection of data from all main and sub-meters across all utilities within a property. An open-system, wireless infrastructure enables building operators and managers to achieve complete transparency regarding consumption figures and processes. Building on this digital infrastructure, Qivalo enables simple self-billing of consumption figures, thereby replacing traditional metering services. It also lays the foundation for all future energy efficiency initiatives and further data-driven optimisations.
The joint venture combines the energy industry and technical expertise and experience of MVV with the real estate expertise of the Rhein-Neckar property group, enabling them to act as a strong partner for the property sector.
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