Designing an integrated socio-technical behaviour change system for energy saving

Abstract

Stimulating households to save energy with behaviour change support systems is a challenge and an opportunity to support efforts towards more sustainable energy consumption. The approaches developed so far, often either; do not consider the underlying behaviour change process in a systematic way, or do not provide a systematic linking of design elements to findings from behaviour change literature and the design of persuasive systems. This paper discusses the design and evaluation of a holistic socio-technical behaviour change system for energy saving that combines insights from behavioural theories and the persuasive system design in a systematic way. The findings from these two streams of research are combined into an integrated socio-technical model for informing the design of a behaviour change system for energy saving, which is then implemented in a concrete system design. The developed system combines smart meter data with interactive visualisations of energy consumption and energy saving impact, gamified incentive mechanisms, energy saving recommendations and attention triggers. The system design distinguishes between a version with non-personalized energy saving tips and a version with personalized recommendations that are deployed and evaluated separately. In this paper, we present the design and evaluation results of the non-personalized system in a real-world pilot. Obtained results indicate reduced energy consumption compared to a control group and a positive change in energy knowledge in the treatment group using the system, as well as positive user feedback about the suitability of the designed system to encourage energy saving.

Gamification to prevent climate change: a review of games and apps for sustainability

“…Evaluation studies of gamified apps yield promising results. For example, use of "Powersaver Game" or "Reduce Your Juice" led players to reduce their energy consumption upon completion of a four-month trial [24,26], whereas "enCOMPASS" or "Apolis Planeta" led to long-term reductions in household energy usage [25,1]. Common characteristics of these gamified apps include a mechanism to report goals for sustainability, a dashboard to track progress, and some form of social comparison with other app users.…”

A visualization of the energy-saving problems

“…The article "Green gold" highlights that the round-up on last year's global investment in clean energy shows that renewables continued their rapid ascendancy, bringing multiple benefits for all [5]. In recent years, many authors analyze not only the problems of energysaving as such, but also related educational and behavioral aspects, as well as development strategies in Future [6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16].…”

Exploitation of the European Research Projects Aiming to Achieve a Behavior Change for Energy Saving Through Innovative IT Solutions

“…Currently, the enCOMPASS platform is undergoing three trails with pilots in Germany, Switzerland and Greece, in households, schools and public buildings. Early results indicate that for example in Switzerland the platform is successful in reducing household user energy consumption on average by 5.81% as opposed to the control group which increased the consumption by 1.33% [2]. Additionally, the application leads to the increase in energy related knowledge already after 4 months of using the application [2].…”

“…Early results indicate that for example in Switzerland the platform is successful in reducing household user energy consumption on average by 5.81% as opposed to the control group which increased the consumption by 1.33% [2]. Additionally, the application leads to the increase in energy related knowledge already after 4 months of using the application [2]. In order to bring the enCOMPASS project out of development and into the market, an initial investment of €1,000,000 is needed.…”