In the current situation most European households are informed about their electricity consumption once per year. Smart meters collect the electricity consumption of households in a high frequency (i.e. four times per hour) and transmit these figures to the responsible hub. Consequently, PEAKapp developed a smart phone app which provided households all the capabilities required to achieve the goals outlined above by addressing an unprecedented array of different mechanisms to motivate lasting and effective action i.e. citizen’s behavioural change through:
a) Peer comparison and information provision effect on household energy efficiency,
b) the provoking force of serious gaming and most outstanding,
c) monetary rewards for consuming electricity in times of high production from renewables (by implementing flexible electricity tariffs).
PEAKapp validated this ICT-solution 2.0 under real life conditions in more than 2,500 households in Austria, Estonia, Latvia and Sweden. The results of 17 months field tests in Austria (country with the longest field test with the highest number of participants, > 1,500) showed that there is high demand and interest on the consumer side in the usage of such applications: 80% of the users who received access to PEAKapp used the application at least once, 30% kept using the app regularly through the whole duration of the field tests. Looking at the results of PEAKapp in terms of energy efficiency, we observed that households that were using the app regularly could improve their energy efficiency by 7% on average. Further on, the results of the monetary rewards demonstrate that consumers are willing to adjust their consumption when provided with the right incentive, the average discount caused an increase in consumption of 1.15%. As the monetary part of the incentive is relatively small, we assume that the effect was related to information that energy was produced from renewable sources during the discounted periods. More over, according to results of PEAKapp survey after the end of the project 89% were willing to use the app further, suggesting a high level of satisfaction with the provided by PEAKapp services. The results of peer comparison also show that households that were looking at the benchmark decreased their electricity consumption by 3% and the less efficient ones even by 7% the day after looking at the benchmark. Looking at further results achieved by PEAKapp, 40% of users claimed that their behaviour in terms of energy consumption has changed after that used the app, 14% replaced their household appliances with more energy efficient ones, and 5% even made major renovations in their dwellings including retrofits. From the electricity provider side, PEAKapp was seen as a competitive advantage as it helped to improve the communication with the consumers, decrease the churn rate and test new business models. As PEAKapp field test collected evidence of advantages of such an ICT for consumers, also the regulatory aspects which will support further market uptake of such solution were also analysed within the PEAKapp project.
