Save energy with electrical heating
Nobo, a company which provides electrical heaters has established itself internationally over the last 30 years. Its manufacturing base is in Norway, although it now has businesses all over the world. Its clients range from property developers who install these heating systems into new properties, to student accommodation and hotels. Nobo electrical heaters are also widely used in the public sector and the company has in the past worked to provide heating solutions to the education and health sector. The company stresses on its website www.noboheatinguk.com that electrical heating is the most controllable of energy sources. Furthermore, it seems that the future within this marketplace points to a heating system that is 100% efficient at point of use and highly controllable using high quality accurate electronic thermostats and time control. This company is therefore in a key position to provide the technical and commercial assistance to this research project. The WIRENET project set as its main aim, to design and realise an innovative system based on a power-line data exchange for home and industrial automation using the recent Ultra Wide Band (UWB) technology. The fundamental aspects of the approach of UWB for power line signalling were investigated. Data exchange using UWB was not based simply on carrier waves or frequency but took place due to a sequence of spikes which appear along the whole frequency spectrum. High computational power available at low costs made this approach possible as it is up to the intelligence of the devices to reconstruct a pattern and identify meaningful information. The company has experienced difficulty with the existing mains signalling technology, as it causes noise and disturbances on the grid. Nobo will be including WIRENET in the company's next generation of heating system controllers which are used in domestic and small commercial applications. The main focus of its contribution to the project is the development of three bundled products: a central control unit, a receiver with or without a thermostat and a phase coupler/signal amplifier. Nobo is in a position to offer its experience and commercial success to this venture.
