Grundfos iGRID lowers temperatures and pressures in district heating networks to exactly what each part of the city needs. For more than three years we have designed the customer portals where utilities and facility managers watch, trust and act on that intelligence.
The iGRID customer portal · zone station view
long-term partnership with Grundfos
customer portals, one design language
less heat loss possible in an iGRID zone
between fresh readings from the grid
The client
The world’s largest pump manufacturer, from a small town in Jutland.
Grundfos was founded in Bjerringbro in 1945 and today makes pumps and water solutions for buildings, utilities and industry all over the world. Heating is where it all started, and district heating is where Grundfos is now pushing hardest on energy efficiency.
founded by Poul Due Jensen in Bjerringbro
pump manufacturer in the world
colleagues across the globe
owned, profits go to science and water
Building services
MAGNA3 circulators, TPE3 in-line pumps and Hydro MPC boosters for heating, cooling and water in commercial buildings.
District energy
Plant pumps, CUE drives, mixing loops and the iGRID solution for utilities that distribute heat to whole cities.
Water utility
Pumps, dosing and digital services for drinking water and wastewater across networks and treatment plants.
Industry
CR multistage pumps and solutions for process water, boilers and machine tools.
Understanding iGRID
A grid built for its hungriest customer wastes heat everywhere else.
A district heating network is sized for the building that needs the hottest water and the highest pressure. The old hospital block sets the temperature for the whole city, and the new low-energy district gets water it can’t use. The extra heat leaks into the ground through kilometres of pipe.
iGRID Temperature Zone
A pre-fabricated mixing loop that splits the city into zones and blends return water in, so each zone gets exactly the temperature it needs.
iGRID Temperature Optimiser
Calculates the lowest safe supply temperature from real-time data, weather forecasts and learned consumption patterns, and pre-heats before morning peaks.
iGRID Pressure Optimiser
Uses differential pressure at critical points to run the plant pumps only as hard as the network needs.
iGRID Measure Points
Wireless sensors in buildings and pits, powered by a thermoelectric generator. They report temperature, flow and pressure every minute.
iGRID Cloud & SCADA
NIS2-compliant cloud with open protocols. Data can be used in the portal or fed into the utility’s own SCADA.
Try it yourself
Turn iGRID on and watch the city cool down.
A simplified network with one plant and five neighbourhoods. Drag the outdoor temperature and switch between a traditional grid and iGRID. The critical points still get the pressure they need; the rest of the heat stays in the pipes.
Illustrative model built for this case. Real savings depend on the grid, the zones and the consumers.
Plant supply
Heat loss in the network
−18 % saved
Plant pump power
−34 % saved
Critical point ΔP
Who we design for
Two customer portals, two very different working days.
The iGRID portal serves district heating utilities that run the network around the clock. The Commercial Building portal serves facility managers who look after pumps in offices, hotels and logistics centres, often as one job among many.
iGRID customer portal
District heating utilities
Operations manager
“Is the grid running as efficiently as it can, and can I prove it to the board?”
Control room operator
“What changed, why did the optimiser do it, and do I need to step in?”
Field technician
“Which measure point, which address, and what do I bring?”
Commercial Building customer portal
Commercial building facility managers
Facility manager
“Are all my pumps healthy across all my buildings, right now?”
Energy manager
“Where are we using more energy than we should, and what is it worth?”
Service partner
“What exactly is wrong with this pump before I drive out?”
Field research
We went to the heating plants.
You can’t design for a control room from a meeting room. We visited district heating plants, sat next to operators on their shifts and ran in-depth interviews with key people across the industry. The observations shaped every screen that followed.
Plant visits
Physical visits to district heating plants to see the control rooms, the SCADA screens and the pump halls where decisions are actually made.
In-depth interviews
Long conversations with operations managers, operators and technicians about their routines, their worries and their workarounds.
Observational studies
Shadowing people through real shifts: what they check first, what they print out, and when they pick up the phone.
What we learned
SCADA is home
Operators live in their SCADA. The portal has to add insight and not compete with the screen they already trust.
Trust before automation
Nobody hands a city’s heat to an algorithm they can’t follow. Every automatic setpoint change needs a visible reason.
The critical point is everything
The question is always whether the weakest point in the grid gets enough pressure and heat. It had to be visible at a glance.
Winter mornings are the test
The 06:00 peak on a cold weekday is when the grid is under the most stress. The forecast view was designed around it.
How we work
From user journeys to tested UI components.
Journeys
We mapped existing workflows and user journeys for each role, including all the places they left the system to get work done.
Wireframes
Detailed wireframes for the network overview, zones, measure points and alarms, reviewed with Grundfos domain experts.
Prototypes
Interactive prototypes with realistic grid data, so users reacted to real numbers and not placeholder text.
Test & adapt
Tested with utility and facility manager users, adapted and tested again, with changes going back into the design system.
UI components
Clear, reusable components for navigating complex data, shared by both portals and ready for the developers.
Drag to compare
The iGRID customer portal
Every station, drawn the way operators already read it.
Each iGRID zone station opens with its photo, location, alarm status and data freshness, followed by a live system diagram: supply and return, pressure and temperature on both sides of the mixing loop, and the mode of every pump and valve. Click through the replica and try remote control.
Zone 1
North pumping station
Nørregade 24, 8850 Bjerringbro
No alarms and warnings
All data updated 6 min. ago
Oct 22, 2024, 13:20:16
The diagram is the interface
A calm, dark system view in the P&ID language operators know from SCADA, with live values on every sensor.
Status before detail
Alarms and data freshness sit at the top of every station, so an operator knows in a second whether to worry.
Differences, not just readings
Pressure and temperature differences are calculated between supply and return, so the numbers that matter need no mental arithmetic.
Control with a trail
Remote control changes modes and setpoints on site, and every command is logged in Events.
From the plant room to the screen
Real pumps, real buildings, one portal.
Grundfos shows the Commercial Buildings solution as a working installation: pumps, pipes and controllers on the wall, with the digital layer right next to it. That is the standard we designed the portal for. Every screen has to make sense next to the hardware it controls.
The Commercial Building customer portal
Every pump in every building, for the people who don’t have time to check.
For facility managers, the portal starts with the question “is anything wrong?” and answers it for the whole portfolio before going into buildings, pumps and energy.
Commercial building
Domicil Havnefronten
Aarhus C · 18,400 m²
1 warning
All data updated 2 min. ago
Oct 22, 2024, 13:24:02
Chilled water pump running at 91 %
Cooling, chilled water · TPE3 50-240
The TPE3 has run above 90 % speed for 3 days. This often points to a clogged strainer or a stuck valve in the cooling circuit.
Check the strainer before the next warm day.
Portfolio overview
All buildings with energy, savings and open alarms, so the one that needs attention stands out.
Pump cards
Each pump shows its role in the building, not only its model number, with live speed, flow, head and power.
Alarms in plain language
What happened, what it means for the building and what to do next, ready to forward to the service partner.
The UI components
A component library for complex data.
Both portals are built from the same components. They were designed to stay readable with thousands of measure points and to behave the same way everywhere.
Sensor with value chips
Pump modes
Control valve
Line language
Status cards
No alarms and warnings
All data updated 6 min. ago
Oct 22, 2024, 13:20:16
Station header
Zone 1
North pumping station
Nørregade 24, 8850 Bjerringbro
Tab bar
Pump card
The partnership
Years of work, many projects, one team that knows the domain.
Grundfos keeps coming back because we don’t need an introduction to district heating any more. Every project builds on the research, the components and the trust from the one before.
Discovery
Workshops with the iGRID team, domain onboarding and the first map of users and journeys.
Field research
Plant visits, interviews and observational studies with utilities.
iGRID customer portal
Network overview, temperature zones, optimiser views, measure points and alarms.
Commercial Building portal
Portfolio overview, pump cards, energy and alarms for facility managers.
Components & evolution
A shared component library and continuous improvement as iGRID grows.
customer portals
shared component library
years side by side
What the client says
We have worked with Ceptiv on several of our digital offerings, and they have become a natural part of the team. They move fast, turning ideas into new designs and clickable prototypes quickly, so we can test with customers early instead of debating on paper. They are great at bringing stakeholders together and never lose sight of the customer. If you are looking for a UX/UI partner with broad industry experience, a sharp eye for design and genuinely excellent collaboration, I can highly recommend Ceptiv.
What we delivered
UX and UI responsibility for two enterprise portals.
Complex data, critical systems, busy users?
That is exactly what we like. Tell us about your platform and we’ll show you how we would approach it.