Would you change your energy consumption behaviour if you had an app or interactive game in your home, on your tablet or PC to help you? This is one of the main objectives of FEEdBACk, an H2020 project that aims to use energy efficiency gamification techniques to promote smarter energy consumption through ICT applications.
How FEEdBACk Will Build an Energy Efficiency Gamification App
The objectives of the FEEdBACk project are to develop, integrate and test a wide range of energy-focused ICT applications that promote, stimulate and deliver energy efficiency.
These apps will be used to engage energy users, enabling them to understand and change their behaviour related to energy consumption in three different built environments (office/research laboratories, schools, smart homes) in three climatic environments (northern Portugal, Mediterranean Spain and northern Germany).
The development of this broad spectrum of energy-related applications and the use of state-of-the-art gamification techniques, proven in such a wide range of built environments, has not been tried before. The results of the project will accelerate the commercialisation of the tools by a wide range of innovative SMEs, within and outside the project consortium, which will help building owners and stakeholders to understand and reduce their energy consumption.
How will they do this? By encouraging efficient energy use and more responsible consumer behaviour through an energy efficiency gamification platform that will be used to motivate sustainable behavioural change. The FEEdBACk gamification application will have an interactive and friendly interface to motivate more efficient use of energy through personalised messages and peer-to-peer competition.
The app will include a set of stimulating material, such as simple games and quizzes, relating to energy decision-making in various everyday life situations. Attractive dashboards will be developed so that users can easily compare, using storytelling and animation, their own energy efficiency performance with their peers…or even neighbouring offices or homes. FEEdBACk users will also have the possibility to share their accomplishments on social media.
However, consumers’ behavioural change will not only be promoted in these demonstration areas. Activities such as awareness campaigns on social media channels or on the project website will be promoted to the Portuguese, Spanish, English, and German consumers, outside the demonstration areas, to try to encourage a behavioural change regarding energy efficiency goals.
DEXMA’s Role in the FEEdBACk Project
Demonstration of the results of the FEEdBACK project will be valuable for the technical and market planning of the EU energy industry. FEEdBACK’s ambition is to enable a wide range of companies to incorporate or integrate elements of behavioural change applications and components, thus making their products more competitive and successful in the EU and globally. This will contribute significantly to the achievement of important EU objectives on sustainable energy.
This is where DEXMA comes in, leading the demonstration phase of the FEEdBACk project, also known as the 5th work package (WP5). In this WP, DEXMA will be in charge of assessing the energy efficiency awareness and engagement activities within the ICT-based platform that will result from this project. DEXMA will also play an important role in developing the actual gamification engine. In terms of FEEdBACk task leadership, DEXMA will coordinate the work related to data privacy and protection, user profiling and segmentation, implementation of the ICT-based platform for energy efficiency and monitoring, and validation of economic impacts and business models.
Where will FEEdBACK happen?
The project has three demonstration areas – Portugal, Spain and Germany – that will focus on three distinct built environments.
The Portuguese demonstrator will be the building of INESC TEC, in Porto, the Spanish demonstration area encompasses a number of public buildings in the municipality of El Prat in Barcelona, and the German demonstration consists of a residential area located in Lippe.
The FEEdBACk Project Consortium
The FEEdBACk project consortium consists of 8 partners from 7 countries in Europe: Portugal, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Denmark, Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom.
The consortium that has come together to deliver FEEdBACk is made up of highly experienced energy research organisations; three SMEs specialising in e-learning digital communication applications aimed at behavioural change and the creation of a representation and collection of energy data for managers and users; and three organisations that own and manage buildings, schools and public and private housing, which are committed to reducing and making it more sustainable.
The FEEdBACk project partners are: INESC TEC (Portugal), Technische Universiteit Delft (Netherlands), École Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (Switzerland), Dexma (Spain), Limetools (United Kingdom), In-Jet (Denmark), Kreis Lippe Der Landrat (Germany) and Estudi Ramon Folch I Associats (Spain).
The project kicked off in November 2017 and will run for three years until October 2020 with a budget of €2.3M.
FEEdBACk project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 768935.
For more information, visit the project website here. To discover the other R&D projects DEXMA is working on in addition to the FEEdBACk project, check here.
