Project description
Human-centric framework for sustainable energy behaviours
The European Green Deal has established key priorities to reduce energy consumption, lower greenhouse gas emissions, and decrease energy costs. These priorities affect the requirements of consumer energy services, while energy providers face the challenge of transitioning from traditional energy retailing to incorporating data-driven services. To encourage sustainable energy behaviours, the EU-funded UtilitEE project is developing a human-centric behavioural change framework, corresponding innovative Energy-as-a-Service business models and associated tools for utilities. The project will identify and quantify energy-intensive activities, providing meaningful feedback to engage users in a continuous learning and improvement process. It will also demonstrate behavioural models and theories to trigger energy-efficient citizen behaviours, and semi-automated tools to improve household energy efficiency according to the Common Energy Reference Framework.
Objective
Utilities are facing political pressure to reduce the energy end use by their customers and GHG emissions. Consumers, on the other hand, are empowered by the proliferation of IT interfaces and multiplication of channels. Their expectations for everything-anytime-anywhere interaction are redefining the nature of (energy) services. The advent of smart building technologies for energy efficiency reveal a mega-trend on the evolution of consumer choices and highlight the need for addressing their requirements for user-friendly, meaningful and actionable communication. Faced with these realities, business as usual is no longer an option for energy utilities. They must seek new sources of revenues by introducing bundled building energy management service packages including energy efficiency, smart controls and automation. The UtilitEE project will provide a customer-oriented Behavioural Change Framework (Energy-as-a-Service delivery approach via an open ICT ecosystem integrated into the building with off-the-shelf sensors). It focuses on discovering, quantifying and revealing energy-hungry activities and conveys meaningful feedback to engage users into a continuous process of learning and improvement. UtilitEE will leverage well-known behavioural models/ theories and standardized operational rating/ certification methods. It will also incorporate human-centric intelligent control features that use occupant comfort profiles and supportively control HVAC and lights so as to minimize energy waste, while always keeping occupants comfortable and preserving a healthy indoor environment. The framework will be validated in real-life conditions by a large population of residential and commercial consumers and aims to reduce energy use by ~30%. Validation activities will also explore future business models and go-to-market strategies for utilities. A holistic roadmap and business plan for the exploitation and replication of project results will be delivered.
Fields of science
- humanitiesartsarchitectural design
- engineering and technologymechanical engineeringthermodynamic engineering
- natural sciencesmathematicspure mathematicsdiscrete mathematicsmathematical logic
- social scienceseconomics and businessbusiness and managementbusiness models
- engineering and technologyelectrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineeringelectronic engineeringsensors
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
IA - Innovation actionCoordinator
15232 Chalandri Athina
Greece
The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.