The first sets of monitoring data have been successfully collected at the oPEN Living Lab in Genk.
Partners KU Leuven, VITO, Cast4All, and Daikin, along with subcontractors EMR Verheyen and Heedfeld, have joined forces to gather data on key technologies operating within the living lab. These include heat pumps, ventilation systems, photovoltaic (PV) inverters, and sensors that track indoor climate, heat flows, and water consumption.
A major challenge partners are currently addressing is ensuring the interoperability of the different systems involved. This requires aligning and integrating different communication protocols used by the various components. Heat pumps, ventilation units, and inverters all operate with unique protocols that need to be harmonised.
Despite this challenge, the project is progressing well, with all gathered data being fed into the SmarThor platform. SmarThor is a central cloud data platform that collects and stores relevant data related to the Open Thor Living Lab environment. It is developed and maintained by VITO & KU Leuven. The goal of SmarThor is to support research and innovation by making the data available in a secured way (API’s, dashboards) for different kinds of stakeholders: researchers, policy makers, facility managers, industry.
