Have you ever wondered how Emyze actually calculates your CO₂e emissions when heating? Understandable, because heating is very individual and depends on personal factors. the resulting CO₂e emissions depend on the different forms of heating, your prefered temperature and a couple more things. That's why we gave it a lot of thought and researched it intensively. Curious how Emyze puts it all together? Let us explain!

To get to the CO₂e emissions, we first have to find out how many kilowatt hours (kWh) of energy it takes to keep your home warm. In order to calculate your kWh as accurately as possible, we consider three factors.

Logically - the more area that needs to be heated, the more energy is consumed. Ergo, the corresponding CO₂e eemissions also increase. So if you want to save costs and CO₂e, you should look at your rooms individually and consider which areas of the living space should have which temperature. If you want to record your CO₂e footprint precisely, you can simply add the "Heating" section several times and then specify the respective room sizes. You can also see which living area requires the most heating energy.

You may have seen the U-value on your energy certificate. For the physics enthusiasts among us: The unit describes the energy flowing through per square metre in Kelvin. For everyone else: The U-value shows how good the insulation properties of the building under consideration are. The better the heated building is insulated, the less energy is required. The U-value is therefore an important factor in determining the CO₂e footprint of your heating system. To make it easier for you, with Emyze you don't have to enter your specific U-value, but only the type of building you live in. Emyze figures out the rest!

Of course, it's also important how warm you want your room(s) to be. It is taken into account how big the difference between outside and inside temperature is. Surely you can already imagine that it would be quite difficult for us to keep up with the current temperature. Instead, we assume the average value between October and April - in Germany, for example, that is only 5.1°C. This value goes into our calculation, just like your chosen room temperature.

With the factors mentioned above can be calculated quite individually how many kilowatt hours - i.e. energy - must be used to heat your apartment. In order to finally be able to state what this means for your emissions, the kWh must be offset against another factor.
It is only when you state how you heat your living space that it becomes clear how much CO₂e it actually causes. As you can probably imagine, traditional energy sources are larger sources of emissions than modern heat pumps.
Now it's your turn: how much CO₂e does your heating behavior cause?

Unfortunately we cannot reflect all influencing factors in our calculation. For example, how much energy you really need also depends on how many exterior walls your living space has. Typically, single-family homes are detached, while multi-family homes are adjacent to other residential units. As a result, more or less heat is lost. The floor also plays a role, because if the apartment below is heated, your own apartment will also indirectly be heated. In addition, the heat conditions depend on your ventilation behavior, the number of people and the devices that emit heat.
We have adopted the CO₂e values that we use in our calculations from the Federal Environment Agency and the Federal Office of Economics and Export Control.
Any questions on the topic? Feel free to get in touch with us through our social media channels!