Liukuri is a web app visualizing the current electricity prices and sources inspired by exceptionally high electricity prices in 2022. In addition, it also features an electricity cost calculator with which you can determine how much your electricity consumption in Finland has cost based on actual Fingrid data. Since its inception, the application has become popular amongst Finnish households. 
Navigating rising electricity prices during an energy crisis
Vesa Nieminen, Senior Software Engineer at Vaadin, built Liukuri with Vaadin Flow to track his electricity usage and market price fluctuations during the current energy crisis. He started by monitoring his own electricity usage with the help of his Fronius inverter, which gave him real-time updates on the energy production and consumption levels of his solar panels. Then, he developed an electricity cost dashboard using Vaadin Charts and incorporated data on Finnish electricity prices into the chart. See Liukuri on GitHub.
He expanded Liukuri by building views to show Finland’s electricity production using Fingrid data to help visualize how the price of market electricity changes in comparison to hydro, wind, nuclear, and solar energy production. For example, Liukuri has shown a clear correlation between increased wind production and lower electricity prices.
Empowering users with unique features and seamless performance
The Liukuri app gained popularity among Finnish households, and within a month of its launch, it had over 15,000 active users and garnered over 270,000 page views. The app's successful reception led to some server issues, which Vesa resolved by optimizing the code.
One of the app's unique features is the price calculator, which helps users compare their actual consumption data to a fixed price and see the difference in costs. Users have found this feature particularly useful, as it has helped them identify mistakes made by their energy companies. Additionally, Liukuri has support for price change notifications, so you know when it's a good time to charge your car or warm up the sauna!
What’s next?
Vesa plans to improve Liukuri's scalability by changing servers and adding Vaadin Observability Kit for live monitoring. He also plans to add user accounts with SSO Kit to allow users to access their own data and add a database. Finally, he is considering gamifying the app and adding a little fun element for the app's users.