Eco-aware Persuasive Networked Data Devices for User Engagement in Energy Efficiency

Project Information

GREENSOUL

Grant agreement ID: 696129

DOI 10.3030/696129

Closed project

EC signature date 1 February 2016

Start date 1 April 2016

End date 31 October 2019

Funded under

• SOCIETAL CHALLENGES - Secure, clean and efficient energy

Total cost € 1 881 500,00

EU contribution € 1 881 500,00

Coordinated by

WELLNESS TELECOM SL
Spain

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - GREENSOUL (Eco-aware Persuasive Networked Data Devices for User Engagement in Energy Efficiency)

Reporting period: 2017-10-01 to 2019-10-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

GreenSoul (GS) pursues higher energy efficiency in buildings of public use by altering the way people use energy consuming shared and personal devices through:
1) refined persuasion principles and techniques that aim to increase users’ energy-awareness and change their energy-related habits: from social apps to interaction mechanisms linked to the devices
2) Embedding intelligence in the devices to let them autonomously decide about their operation mode for energy efficiency purposes in a pluggable manner to avoid costly replacement of equipment

The persuasion of users is particularly challenging for the examined tertiary buildings since occupants hardly perceive the benefits of having eco-friendly behaviour. To that end, GreenSoul designed and developed an integrated ICT platform that:
a) Improves energy-related awareness.
b) Studies the energy, social, and economic behaviour of the people in shared environments.
c) Analyses the effectiveness of multiple persuasion techniques.
d) Assists users with recommendations through a multi-layered decision-support engine and e) Delivers energy-related socio-economic models that evidence about the viability of the changes proposed.

Through seven pilots in four countries, GreenSoul has provided proof that combined behavioural and ICT interventions at buildings of public use can result in energy savings which surpass 20% (i.e. up to 24.88% daily energy consumption reduction). Furthermore, besides the energy consumption perspective, all pilots have demonstrated positive results in terms of both social and energy efficiency aspects. Hence, the GreenSoul impact has been proven multi-dimensional at different climatic areas (cross-country) and at buildings of different usage and facilities (cross-building).

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

GreenSoul Consortium has completed the circle of all necessary actions denoted in the project’s Description of Action (DoA –Annex I). The work in the second period of the project (M19-M43) focused on the fulfilment of user requirements analysis and use cases finalization, as well as on the overall GreenSoul system implementation and evaluation. In parallel, the development efforts have been finalised in all domains of the GreenSoul project, namely:
● elaboration on persuasion principles and techniques that can further engage end-users towards a more energy efficient behaviour
● completion, evaluation and validation of energy-related socio-economic models for buildings of public use,
● GS-ed IoT devices for improved end-user engagement and energy efficiency
● Multi-layer Decision support system for advanced recommendation and gamification services
● Enriched visualisation through web and mobile interfaces
● Pilot Deployment of the overall GreenSoul system in five buildings (with two additional as control groups) in four countries across Europe
● Exploration of both individual (personal devices) and collective (share devices) treatments
● Evaluation and validation of the GreenSoul system achieving up to more than 20% energy savings in buildings of public use.
Moreover, project efforts proceeded in focusing also on several horizontal activities regarding diffusing project objectives, concepts and achievements in key stakeholders as well as to the general public.

The developments for the reporting period can be summarized, but not limited to the following points:
1. Completion/Improvements of the GS-ed things
-Improve the Interactive Coaster (IC) to operate with of-the-shelve smart plugs.
-Develop the back-end infrastructure to operate the IC.
-Improve the GreenSoul-ed lighting (Dimmer) in terms of functionality
-Improve the UMDs to support more stable operation
2. Completion/Improvements of the GreenSoul analytics and DSS
-Adaptation of the DSS to the new pilot plan and the persuasion strategies agreed
-Explore a more lightweight version of the DSS to be able to run with fewer computation resources and on a higher level in terms of sensors/actuators
-Development of the gamification services for assigning points to assigned users based on daily, weekly and monthly energy savings, in both an individual and collective manner.
-Deployment of the GreenSoul DSS at all the GS Pilot premises.
-Testing evaluating and adjusting the DSS performance to the pilots during pilot execution.
3. Complete integration and assembly of the GreenSoul IoT Platform
-Improvements on the GIM API and development of new interfaces required (i.e. firebase notification engine).
-Development of the debugging system (alert system and monitorization).
4. Finalise Energy-related behaviour modelling features to be included in the DSS following the DNAS framework
-Environmental conditions
-Comfort profiles integrated
-Assets and Systems included
5. Analyse preliminary survey results (pre-pilot), refine survey and re-analyse final results (post-pilot) to assess Users’ Multi-Entity Profiling
-Descriptive and prescriptive analysis of preliminary findings
-Redefinition of survey constructs - limitation of persuasion principles identified and questions asked
6. Completion/Improvements of the GreenSoul Socio-economic models
-Refined implementation of two models for predicting the most appropriate selection of persuasion strategies to engage end-users
7. GreenSoul Deployment in 7 buildings (5 pilots + 2 control ) in 4 countries in three stages: testing, individual, and collective treatments.
8. Evaluation and Validation of the GreenSoul system based on pilot results
-Refinement of the evaluation methodology and validation
-Validation of the models and evaluation of the results of the pilot phase in terms of technical (kWh), economic (euros), environmental (emissions) and social (behaviour change) impacts.
-Best practices and lessons learned compiled.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

A platform to perform randomized experiments on persuasion strategies to foster energy efficiency in buildings of public use have been developed and tested. The platform is based on the Human-machine collaboration principle. The platform is modular and has shown to produce reductions in energy consumption that could reach above 20 % in favourable conditions. Under realistic deployment scenarios, the solution is technically, economically and environmentally profitable. The solutions seem to not have any negative social impact but the interest in the solutions decay sharply after two months of use. Nevertheless, the reductions persist these lack of interest confirming that the change on the behaviour has been actually produced. Finally, the qualitative feedback shows that even as the self-perception of the user is that the treatments are ineffective after two months of use, the effect does not vanish. In fact, different individuals cite that they have even modified their behaviour at home.

GreenSoul Logo

GS_Smart Analysers

GS_Concept hybrid approach

GS_Visualization Platform

GS_Key components and impact

GS_Requirements analysis methodology

GS_Platform Architecture

GreenSoul-ed Things

GS_Pilot Location

GS_Mobile App Mockups