The HUKATON project creates new overall solutions based on waste heat recovery in order to incorporate selected property types into a smart energy system from the demand response perspective. HUKATON will also introduce completely new service business models based on cooperation and digital solutions of several companies, with potential to be developed into export products representing the Finnish excellence. After the project, these models can be replicated and utilized in corresponding property types.

Currently, as much as 50% of the annual heating energy of a property is carried through tap water and ventilation to drains and to the sky. In Europe, built environments waste heat up to the amount equivalent with the annual production of 30 nuclear power plants. The overall energy consumption of a property can be significantly reduced by recovering heat energy from waste water and exhaust air. Along with the utilization of waste heat, developing heat storing and demand response are in key position in creating a smart energy system and a low carbon society.

The recovery and more effective utilization of waste heat conveyed through waste water and ventilation requires new types of overall solutions that are not only as energy efficient as possible but also financially feasible. The key objective of the HUKATON project is to develop techno-economically optimized smart overall solutions for better utilization of waste heat in selected property categories and on their basis identify replicable concepts which can be widely utilized in built environment also after the project has ended. A single technology is not enough to create overall optimized solutions; instead, the best concepts consist of combinations of different solutions. Such overall concepts are produced in the HUKATON project.