Household Energy Conservation Intervention: a Game versus Dashboard Comparison

Abstract

This paper presents the results of a study, comparing a game versus a dashboard with respect to energy conservation in the household. In a pretest-posttest design, an empirical study tested whether change in attitude, knowledge, engagement and behaviour with respect to energy conservation in the household was different for participants playing Powersaver Game compared to a control condition where participants used an energy dashboard with the same content, but excluding game features. The aim of this game (developed using an iterative user-centered game design methodology) is to influence household energy consumption by means of electricity and gas usage in the long-term. The intervention time was at least 5 weeks and pre and post measures were based on 21 days intervals. All energy conservation activities that the application provides (e.g. washing clothes on low temperatures) take place in the real world and feedback is based on real time energy consumption. This real data into the game approach aims to optimize the transfer between the game world and the real world. Energy consumption significantly changed in the game condition compared to the control condition, and the difference between both conditions is more than 33% after the intervention. In the game condition, knowledge about energy conservation was significantly increased, although no significant differences in increase of attitude and engagement were found. We conclude that Powersaver Game is effective in transfer of energy conservation knowledge, which leads to energy saving behaviour on the long term. However, it cannot be concluded that playing the game leads to a greater change in attitude, probably because attitude scores of the participants were high from the start.

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.…”

IoT Sensing for Reality-Enhanced Serious Games, a Fuel-Efficient Drive Use Case

“…Reference [20] reviews the design and effectiveness of 10 games that aim to influence household energy consumption and presents a gamification approach in which real world activities are implemented in a game design. The same authors later argued that the Powersaver Game is effective in transferring energy conservation knowledge to users, which led to increased energy saving behavior on the long term [21]. A similar approach has been introduced in the health domain as well.…”

A Serious Game for Changing Mindsets About Loans for Home Retrofitting

“…Serious games, when integrated into real life, have previously been shown to have positive impact on the attitude and behaviour of household owners when it comes to energy conservation [7]. Quite a few games have been made within the energy domain, including: The Power House [2], Energy Chickens [13], EcoIsland [11] and Powersaver Game [8]. The latter study contains a comparison of previous energy games and points out some shortcomings when it comes to the implementation of gamification and the lack of pre-and post-measurements.…”