Behind today’s heatings are intelligent systems that make life very pleasant. Thus, in many households it is normal nowadays that the bathroom heater is switched on automatically before the alarm clock rings in the morning so that one may take a shower at a pleasant ambient temperature. The temperature in the living area can be adjusted such that the personal feel-good temperature in the evening after returning home from work is reached. It goes without saying that heating is at its lowest at night – done all by itself.
Modern heating systems are unthinkable without intelligent control engineering: This is based on innovative micro-electronics and it ensures optimum interaction between all heating components – heating boiler, burner, heating pump and radiator included. It ensures that the desired temperature is reached by the heating system. Even if the window is opened for a short duration or icy outdoor degrees require a higher temperature. The technology is easier to operate and more energy-efficient than ever before. Consumers can heat certain areas in a very accurate manner and on the basis of demand. Thus, control engineering helps reduce operating costs on a long-term basis. A display makes the consumption values transparent, captures the operating conditions and indicates when maintenance is necessary. Users can make corrections in the set programs easily – if one suddenly wishes to have it warmer or because there is a sudden fall in temperature outside. If a fault occurs, it is displayed immediately on the display. The information helps the heating system technician detect the causes directly, and rectify the fault at the earliest.

Today’s heating systems offer considerably more than the earlier versions: You can control domestic hot water preparation, heat output as well as ventilation centrally.
When required, these modern systems create not just hot water for heating - they also heat the water for kitchen and bathroom. These heating systems can also be bivalent, i.e., operated simultaneously by two energy resources. Renewable energies are used mostly in this case – for example solar heating. Control engineering combines the energy of the solar thermal system with the system. The heating system steps in if the system does not yield sufficient heat due to inclement weather conditions – controlled by control engineering in the background. Control engineering takes over the control of very different heating systems – also of micro- or mini-CHP stations that produce power and heat simultaneously based on the principle of cogeneration of power and heat. Control engineering feeds among other things, the excess power to the local network – which could be interesting to house owners since they are compensated for the excess power.

Today’s control engineering for heating systems offers versatile options of generating and using heat. Its potentials however, can be realized fully only in combination with modern communications technology: Thus, it is already possible today to control the heating system in the basement from the living room via radio – with a remote control, as one is used to for long with television, DVD player or the stereo system.
The technician needs only a laptop for system diagnosis. And because communications technology reports faults, failures or other events to the technical firm immediately, landlords and landladies are spared exposure to the vagaries of winter: The technician gets the required information without delay and can handle the situation from his writing table. He can initiate all the required steps through online access. Unnecessary service visits are avoided this way, and system availability increases – without extra expenditure and extra costs for the owners.

A modern heating system can be controlled these days from a centralized computer, which manages all data, programs and information. In principle, such a board computer can be operated intuitively over a touch screen. The residents can create heating profiles for the individual rooms here, define a base temperature or regulate the valves of the radiator. Sensors capture the environment conditions which are then evaluated by the system and converted accordingly. Thus, control engineering and communications technology enable an energy management that is geared exactly to the requirements of the residents.