Harvesting low-hanging efficiency fruits with smart heating – a Swiss energy-saving best practice

Extended abstract 8-273-26

Smart appliances and control systems offer opportunities to reduce household energy consumption through automation and optimization. However, in practice, large‑scale deployment remains limited by numerous barriers, including low awareness, limited digital literacy and trust, system complexity, high investment costs and insufficient cost‑effectiveness.

When examining more closely how smart‑home technologies can deliver tangible energy efficiency gains, space heating emerges as the most promising area of intervention, as it accounts for the largest share of household energy consumption. In particular, significant inefficiencies arise when lodgings are heated despite being unoccupied – a situation that is common in intermittently used dwellings such as secondary homes and vacation properties.

Switzerland has over 700,000 such residences, often located in mountainous regions and occupied mainly during weekends or a few weeks in winter. For reasons related to comfort, convenience, or concerns about building damage, many owners do not sufficiently reduce heating levels during extended absences, resulting in considerable energy waste.

A study estimated that secondary homes consumed roughly 5,100 GWh in 2017 or about 12% of total household heating energy. Installing remotely controllable thermostats and systematically lowering temperatures during absences lasting several days offers an annual saving potential of around 2,200 GWh. Depending on building type, heating system, and usage patterns, individual savings can range from 25% to 80%. And although simple technical solutions are available for most heating systems and the installation pays off quickly, fewer than 5% of dwellings had adopted them by 2017.

Read the full abstract.

Download presentation.