ChArGED addresses energy consumption in public buildings with a framework that facilitates achieving greater energy efficiency and reductions of wasted energy. It leverages IoT enabled, low-cost devices to improve energy disaggregation mechanisms that provide energy use and (consequently) wastage events at the device, area and end user level. These wastage are targeted by a gamified application that feeds personalized real-time recommendations to each individual end user.
ChArGED overall system incorporates:
(a) Multi- level energy disaggregation to be implemented using commercially available central energy smart meters, a few smart plugs, and large number of non-expensive sensors such as NFC tags (currently widely adopted) or the contactless BLE beacons on offices, appliances and power switches.
(b) Internet of Things (IoT) and OSGi technology to interconnect subsystems and remotely read the smart meters, smart plugs and NFC/BLE tags and smartphones. Thus every single office appliance and switch takes part into the ChArGED gamified system entity and all together in a complete and integrated solution.
(c) A gamified application for portable / mobile devices that:
● Implements novel concepts for attractive and engaging user-centred motivational paths towards efficient use of resources (i.e. appliances).
● provides personalized (monetary and non-monetary) motivation for participating players based on their progression in consuming resources efficiently.
(d) A weather forecasting component integrated with a solar micro-generation unit that will optimise scheduling -correlated with real-time and predicted levels of micro-generation- in order to lead end-users to use locally produced energy when available and to reduce consumption when most power comes from the grid.
The ChArGED solution was deployed and validated by about 75 real building users in three (3) countries (and about 270 visitors).
Based on the analysis of collected data during baseline establishment, energy saving opportunities at each pilot site that have been considered in the range of 5% to 20%,as pilot sites did no exhibit patterns of energy waste in the range of 30% of energy use, and the electrical devices targeted by the ChArGED system do not cover the entire building. The evaluation period proved energy consumption reduction of ~14% at DAEM, 6.7% at ICAEN and ~5% at MNHA. Overall, out of all targeted energy consumption at all sites, energy consumption reduction of 9.4% was achieved.
The evaluation results based on the users’ perceptions showed an improvement on the energy-saving profile of the pilot participants (the absolute improvement reached 9.61%). The maximum possible change reached 30.22% for average self-reported energy-saving behavior, and 24.13% for the intention to conserve energy at work. The pilot users expressed a high intention to continue using the Charged game towards conserving energy at work in the future. The most popular challenge played most by the users at DAEM & ICAEN was to use the stairs instead of the lift when coming/leaving to/from work (11,041 completed).
