HOFOR Copenhagen: Demand Management and Prosumers
HOFOR Copenhagen: Demand Management and Prosumer Participation
TL;DR: HOFOR Copenhagen is shifting customers from passive bill-payers to active prosumers by combining smart meters, the Tastselv digital platform, and decentralised rainwater systems, cutting per capita demand towards a 90 litres-per-day target while keeping the central network resilient and affordable.
The relationship between water utilities and their customers is fundamentally changing. The era of the passive consumer who simply pays a monthly bill with little visibility of use is ending. As urban water resources tighten, HOFOR Copenhagen is engaging citizens as active participants in the city’s water cycle. This is as much a governance shift as it is a technical one.
From Passive Consumers to Active Prosumers
HOFOR Copenhagen’s system logic starts with making water use visible and actionable at the household level. Smart meters feed near real-time data into the Tastselv digital platform, allowing customers to track daily consumption patterns and receive automated alerts when flow deviates from typical profiles, such as the continuous trickle that signals a leaking toilet or pipe. This data loop turns every property into an active sensing point in the wider distribution system, reducing both apparent and real losses.
Over several decades, this engagement has driven a structural decline in residential demand. Average consumption in the supply area has fallen sharply since the mid-1980s, and HOFOR Copenhagen now targets 90 litres per person per day by 2025 as a realistic next step. The utility complements digital tools with pricing signals, efficiency campaigns, and widespread metering, so that prosumer behaviour change and technical measures reinforce each other.
Governance focuses on maintaining high-quality, chlorine-free groundwater supplies while managing growth and climate risk. As Copenhagen’s population rises and climate projections indicate potential supply–demand gaps if no action is taken, the prosumer model becomes a risk management tool rather than a communications add-on. Trade-offs include balancing low per capita use against sufficient turnover in pipes to protect water quality and ensuring that decentralised systems comply with health, hydraulic, and urban design standards.
Operationalising Prosumers in Nordhavn and Carlsberg-byen
HOFOR Copenhagen operationalises this prosumer logic in major regeneration districts such as Nordhavn and Carlsberg-byen. In these dense mixed-use areas, new developments are planned around decentralised stormwater retention and reuse, allowing local systems to handle rainfall peaks and supply non-potable demands, while the central network concentrates on secure drinking water provision. Planning regulations and utility design guidelines ensure that building and district systems plug into the wider city strategy rather than acting as isolated pilots.
In Carlsberg-byen, the utility has installed five 100-metre-long underground basins that capture rainwater for reuse in urban activities such as irrigation and cleaning, reducing reliance on treated potable water for these functions. At the same time, customers across HOFOR Copenhagen’s service area use Tastselv and smart meter alerts to track their own consumption in detail, identify leaks quickly, and adjust behaviour in response to price and sustainability signals. Together, this combination of local rainwater infrastructure and digital demand management means that buildings and residents function as integral assets in Copenhagen’s water system rather than passive end points.
HOFOR Copenhagen has set a strategic objective to reduce average household water use to just 90 litres per person per day by 2025, down from around 174 litres per person per day in 1985 to approximately 94 litres per person per day in 2026.
Take-Out
HOFOR Copenhagen shows that prosumer engagement and decentralised rainwater systems can materially lower per capita demand while protecting high-quality supplies and system resilience. The strategic value lies in treating digital platforms, tariffs, and local basins as one integrated demand-management architecture rather than separate projects.
Expert Follow-Up Questions
How does the Tastselv platform change customer behaviour in HOFOR Copenhagen?
Tastselv provides HOFOR Copenhagen customers with self-service access to near real-time consumption data, billing information, and smart meter alerts. When the platform detects unusually continuous flows, it prompts users to check for leaks, especially in toilets and underground pipes, which often go unnoticed for long periods. This continuous feedback loop typically reduces household use and shortens the time between leak occurrence and repair, cutting both bills and non-revenue water.
Why is HOFOR Copenhagen targeting 90 litres per person per day?
The 90 litres per person per day target reflects both resource constraints and a long history of demand reduction in Copenhagen. Average per capita consumption has already fallen dramatically, from around 174 litres per day in 1985 to 94 litres per day in 2026, driven by tariffs, metering, efficiency measures, and engagement programmes. With the prospect of future supply–demand imbalances under climate and growth pressures, the 90-litre goal is a core element of HOFOR Copenhagen’s resource security strategy.
What is the role of decentralised rainwater basins in Carlsberg-byen?
In Carlsberg-byen, decentralised rainwater basins are used to intercept and store stormwater close to where it falls, reducing peak loads on combined sewers and treatment plants. HOFOR Copenhagen’s five 100-metre-long underground basins capture runoff and make it available for non-potable urban uses, such as irrigation or street cleaning, that do not require drinking-water quality. This approach preserves high-quality groundwater for taps, supports climate adaptation, and integrates blue-green infrastructure into a dense urban redevelopment.
How does HOFOR Copenhagen balance low consumption with water quality?
Extremely low consumption can increase residence times in distribution networks, which may impair water quality, especially in systems that avoid residual disinfectants. HOFOR Copenhagen manages this by actively controlling pressures, planning network loops and pipe diameters, and monitoring flows to ensure sufficient turnover even as per capita use falls. The utility’s emphasis on leakage reduction and district metering also helps maintain circulation, keeping its chlorine-free groundwater supply safe and acceptable to consumers.
What lessons can other utilities take from HOFOR Copenhagen’s prosumer strategy?
Other utilities can adapt HOFOR Copenhagen’s approach by pairing smart metering and customer portals with clear, time-bound consumption targets and transparent tariffs. Embedding decentralised stormwater and non-potable reuse systems into new developments, as seen in Nordhavn and Carlsberg-byen, ensures that growth areas reduce pressure on existing centralized infrastructure. Crucially, the model treats customers, buildings, and local basins as managed assets in a unified urban water system, rather than as separate stakeholder groups or projects.
Deep Dive: HOFOR Copenhagen
Learn how customer engagement and decentralised systems are building the Waterwise City in HOFOR Copenhagen, with detailed programmes, governance, and performance metrics from the full case study.
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