Smart energy and building monitoring for nursing homes
Cut the heating waste that open windows and round-the-clock operation create, keep residents comfortable and safe, and turn HIQA compliance into continuous evidence, with one monitoring and control stack.
Three forces converge on the nursing-home sector
Volatile energy prices
Commercial electricity remains well above 2021 levels and gas has roughly doubled, on a load that runs 24/7 and can't be switched off. Energy is one of the few costs a home genuinely controls, and the SEAI grant window that helps fund the fix (microgeneration support tapering toward elimination by 2029) is closing.
Margin squeeze
The BDO/NHI sector survey found roughly half of Irish nursing homes made no profit, with operating costs up far faster than Fair Deal rates and 77 homes closed since 2018. With staff costs largely fixed, controllable overheads like energy are where margin is defended.
HIQA tightening
Strengthened powers under the Health (Miscellaneous Provisions) (No. 2) Act 2024 and the Care and Welfare regulations (SI No. 1 of 2025) raise the bar on premises and infection control. A pending Design Guide for Long-Term Residential Care will let HIQA assess infrastructure directly. Monitored data turns Reg 17 and Reg 27 into evidence.
Three pillars: cost, comfort, compliance
Cost & margin
"Half of Irish nursing homes made no profit last year. Energy is one of the few costs you control."
Heating dominates the nursing-home energy stack at roughly 50–55% of total spend, most of it on fossil fuels at current-year prices. Older converted stock runs on rudimentary controls (fixed-time clocks, no zoning, radiators heating rooms with the windows wide open), while the genuinely irreducible loads (hot water, laundry, catering, lifts) run around the clock. The largest controllable loss in any home is the heating that escapes through open windows and over-shoot, and it is addressable without touching clinical care.
The levers are well understood: setpoint discipline saves 8–12% of heating energy, open-window shutoff a further 4–8%, and sub-metering visibility alone is worth around 10% before any control change. Against a sector benchmark of roughly €2,161 per occupied bed per year, a 15–22% cut on the heating portion is real money recovered from a budget line that would otherwise only rise.
Resident comfort, dignity & air quality
"Frail residents feel every degree, and every draught."
Older residents are far more sensitive to temperature swings and poor air than the general population, and a nursing home is their home around the clock. Continuous monitoring keeps rooms in a stable comfort band rather than cycling between over-heated and cold, and demand-controlled ventilation manages CO₂ and humidity in the lounges and dining rooms where residents spend their days. Crucially, it does this with privacy intact: occupancy sensing is radar or motion only, never cameras or audio, so it is appropriate for bedrooms and dementia units where dignity is non-negotiable.
The same air-quality layer that keeps residents comfortable also produces the infection-control data that matters to families and inspectors alike, a measured environment, not an assumed one.
Compliance & building risk
"HIQA increasingly wants evidence, not assurances."
HIQA's strengthened regime makes the condition of the building a regulatory question, not just an operational one. Regulation 17 requires adequate heating and a comfortable environment; inspectors have cited cold bedrooms and communal areas as non-compliance. Regulation 27 drives ventilation and infection-control expectations. Continuous, time-stamped temperature and CO₂ data turns both into an evidence trail a home can show, instead of a position it has to defend after the fact.
Building risk runs alongside compliance. A home is never empty, but it is least-staffed at night, exactly when a burst pipe, a stuck boiler or a failed hot-water loop becomes a resident-safety event rather than a maintenance ticket. Leak sensors catch water damage within minutes, automated hot-water temperature logging covers Legionella control without manual rounds, and anomaly detection flags equipment drift before a mid-winter heating failure forces an emergency.
A modular monitoring and control stack
Each capability is independently useful and independently funded. Most homes start with heating control plus open-window shutoff, the fastest payback, then layer on air quality, sub-metering and water as savings prove out.
Heating control & open-window shutoff
Smart radiator thermostats on every radiator, paired with window-contact sensors that pause the valve the moment a window is opened and resume when it closes. This is the single biggest controllable loss in a nursing home: staff open windows to clean and air rooms each morning, then radiators run against open windows all day. Setpoint discipline alone saves 8–12% of heating; open-window shutoff adds a further 4–8% in buildings where it's a habit. Contact sensors on external doors flag the propped-open or broken automatic entrance that quietly bleeds heat.
Lighting & privacy-safe occupancy automation
Radar occupancy sensing plus daylight-harvesting controls drive lighting and setback without cameras or audio, no personal data, suitable for bedrooms and dementia units. Radar is the nursing-home difference: it reliably senses slow-moving and seated residents that conventional PIR sensors miss, so automation can finally extend to corridors and resident areas that motion sensors could never safely cover.
Air quality & demand-controlled ventilation
Continuous CO₂, temperature and humidity monitoring in lounges, dining rooms and high-occupancy areas drives Optim Vent and any existing MVHR system. Demand-controlled ventilation lowers infection-relevant CO₂ and lowers bills at the same time, and the logged data underpins the HIQA Regulation 27 (infection control) ventilation narrative, evidence you can show an inspector instead of an assurance you have to give.
Kitchen & laundry sub-metering
A multi-channel current-monitoring hub with CT clamps breaks the bill down across the heaviest 24/7 loads, catering and laundry circuits, plus hot water, HVAC, lifts and the three-phase mains on the same hub. Commercial kitchens and on-site laundries run almost continuously and are where unmonitored waste hides: equipment left on overnight, immersions stuck on, drifting plant. Sub-metering visibility alone is worth around 10% before any control change, by simply showing where the waste is.
Water-leak detection & hot-water safety
Wireless spot, zone and membrane leak sensors on plant rooms, kitchens and bathrooms catch bursts and the running taps and faulty cisterns that a quarterly water bill only reveals in arrears. The same temperature-monitoring layer logs thermostatic mixing valves and stored hot water automatically, replacing the manual Legionella temperature checks that consume caretaker time, and giving a continuous safety record rather than a clipboard.
One dashboard: Optim EOS
Everything above feeds the Optim EOS dashboard, hosted in Ireland, with role-scoped views: the Person in Charge sees comfort and air-quality status, the Facility Manager sees alerts and live operations across sites, and the CFO or Board sees the financial and compliance picture. The same data forms the HIQA-ready evidence trail and the baseline that proves each home's savings before the next phase.
When monitoring proves the case for capital
Heat-pump readiness
Many homes still run on kerosene and natural gas. A sub-metered heating baseline de-risks the case for moving to air-source heat pumps and sizes the project on real consumption rather than guesswork. The Support Scheme for Renewable Heat (SSRH) can cover up to 40% of installation plus an ongoing tariff for up to 15 years, where eligible. Monitor first, then commit capital with evidence.
Solar PV monitoring & expansion
For homes with existing solar, the dashboard turns a static inverter readout into a live operational view of generation, self-consumption and export, and shows how PV interacts with heating, hot water and laundry. Where a home qualifies, the SEAI Non-Domestic Microgeneration Grant supports expanding capacity, though that grant is tapering toward elimination by 2029, so the window to claim it is closing.
Sector benchmarks and a modelled example
Nursing homes are an emerging vertical for monitoring, so the case rests on the mechanism and published sector evidence rather than a roster of named buildings. The figures below are sector benchmarks and a modelled illustration, not Optim first-party results.
Sector energy intensity
BDO/NHI Nursing Homes Survey benchmark of roughly €2,161 per occupied bed per year. Heating (space and hot water) is typically 50–55% of a home's energy spend, the largest single addressable cost. Figures are sector benchmarks, not Optim first-party results.
Heating savings range
Carbon Trust and SEAI sector data put combined setpoint discipline and open-window shutoff at 15–22% of heating energy in 24/7 residential buildings, with the upper bound limited by round-the-clock elderly-resident use and the HIQA Reg 17 temperature floor.
Visibility effect
Sub-metering visibility alone is associated with around a 10% reduction before any control change is made, the building simply shows where waste sits and operators act on it.
Illustrative modelled home (~50 beds)
Modelled on the sector benchmarks above, not a first-party result: a Phase-1 deployment of heating control, open-window shutoff, common-area air quality and electrical baseline visibility yields roughly €11,000/year of avoided waste, around €320 per bed net of the Accelerated Capital Allowance, with a simple payback of about 28 months. A site's own utility bills sharpen this either way.
Our four-step process
Free energy audit
A standalone deliverable: the home gets a professional audit report regardless of any next step. Where it qualifies, SEAI's €2,000 Support Scheme for Energy Audits voucher can cover the cost, we confirm eligibility upfront before any commitment.
Tailored design and quote
A hardware and software specification matched to the building, its current systems and the priorities the audit surfaces, not a one-size-fits-all kit. Sized as a single home or as the first site in an estate rollout.
Installation around care
Wireless, battery-powered devices retrofit without ductwork or structural work. The team works room-by-room around care routines and meal times, no resident is decanted and daily life continues uninterrupted.
Continuous monitoring & support
Quarterly reviews, optimisation and ongoing upgrades, with the platform, alerts and firmware managed remotely. The data forms the HIQA-ready evidence trail and the measured baseline for the next home in the group.
Where the money may come from
Eligibility for each scheme depends on the operator's profile, the project scope and SEAI's current programme rules. We help assess fit and apply where appropriate, we don't promise grants we can't deliver.
SEAI Support Scheme for Energy Audits (SSEA)
€2,000 voucher; can cover the audit cost where the operator qualifies. Eligibility confirmed upfront on a per-home basis, the zero-risk starting point.
Accelerated Capital Allowance (ACA)
100% Year-1 write-off on qualifying energy-efficient equipment (Optim EOS on the SEAI Triple E register), against taxable trading profit. A powerful cash-flow lever for a tax-paying operator; the allowance carries forward where a home is loss-making.
Support Scheme for Renewable Heat (SSRH)
Up to 40% of heat-pump installation cost plus an operating tariff for up to 15 years, the route off kerosene and gas, where eligible.
SEAI Building Fabric Grant
Up to 30% toward insulation, windows and roof upgrades on the worst-performing stock.
SEAI Non-Domestic Microgeneration Grant
Supports solar PV (up to €162,600). Tapering annually toward elimination by 2029, so the value is highest for homes that act sooner.
SEAI Community Energy Grant (CEG)
Up to 50% capital support, with a building-controls slot, suited to bundling multiple homes or a group into a single consortium application, the estate-rollout route.
SEAI EXEED Certified
Supports the engineering and project-management work on larger capital projects; relevant at estate scale.
Managed-service / pay-from-savings
Where a site is suitable, a managed-service structure may let a home spread cost against the savings generated rather than funding capital upfront, subject to assessment.
Nursing homes FAQ
We're a 24/7 home that's never empty, will the install disrupt residents?
Does this help us with HIQA?
GDPR and dignity, do the sensors capture residents?
Won't automated heating control leave frail residents cold?
Does SEAI fund this? Which scheme fits us?
Can we start with one home and roll it out across the group?
Is this extra work for our care and maintenance staff?
One home or a whole estate, the case starts with a measured baseline.
Start with a free energy audit. The home gets a professional report regardless of any next step, and where it qualifies SEAI's €2,000 voucher can cover the cost.