Project description
Alternative currency and personalised recommendations to reward energy savings
The issue of wasted energy is pressing, but people are often reluctant to change their daily habits at home because they don't see the immediate impact of their efforts. In this context, the EU-funded BENEFFICE project is proposing a strategy to encourage and incentivise long-term energy conservation among various groups of consumers. The project aims to monitor energy usage in users' homes, promote energy savings and provide rewards in the form of an alternative monetary currency which can be used through a neobanking mobile application. To achieve this, an innovative IoT-based ecosystem will be developed, featuring low-cost, user-friendly devices and personalised gamification strategies tailored to the users and adapted to household performance. The associated business system will be tested in three pilot sites in Greece, France, and Austria in 100 homes.
Objective
BENEFFICE’s strategic objective is to reduce wasted energy by incentivising various consumer types in the wide energy consumer market. A novel ecosystem will be developed which enables and incentivises long-term energy consumption savings. BENEFFICE ecosystem leverages novel IoT enabled, low-cost, “plug-and-play-and-forget” devices, energy disaggregation and an innovative empowerment and rewards approach based on an alternative monetary currency so as to change consumers’ energy consumption behaviour. The “plug-and-play-and-forget” devices will accurately capture energy use patterns at the level of each electrical appliance and at the level of each individual user. An energy behaviour model will be used to correlate these patterns with optimal, personalised comfort levels, social profiles and characteristics (including social, economic, geographic and energy use contexts) in order to determine optimal energy use behaviour to reduce wastage of energy and to increase the use of renewable resources in the energy mix. BENEFICE will design personalized, real-time motivational paths to deliver sustained reductions in energy consumption. Customers will be incentivized to follow these paths voluntarily, through the application of novel business models that provide monetary rewards in return for progress along each personalized pathway and help build an online community of like-minded actors. These business models will be based on an innovative digital CO2 currency - CO2 Credits are awarded to actors for proven, sustained reduction in fossil fuel use. Business models that stimulate the supply of, and demand for, CO2 Credits, will be designed, tested and validated. These business models will leverage partnerships with established businesses -third party market catalysts- that recognize the potential offered by CO2 Credits both to promote reduced consumption of fossil fuels and to extend their market share by offering a new service to their clients with clear social added value.
Fields of science
- natural sciencescomputer and information sciencesinternetinternet of things
- social scienceseconomics and businessbusiness and managementbusiness models
- natural sciencesbiological sciencesecologyecosystems
- natural scienceschemical sciencescatalysis
- engineering and technologyenvironmental engineeringenergy and fuels
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
IA - Innovation actionCoordinator
1000 Bruxelles / Brussel
Belgium