Periodic Reporting for period 1 - NUDGE (NUDging consumers towards enerGy Efficiency through behavioral science)
Periodo di rendicontazione: 2020-09-01 al 2022-02-28
Efforts to induce energy-friendly behaviour from end-users through behavioural interventions are characterized by a lack of customer personalization (“one-size-fits-all interventions”), a partial understanding about how different interventions interact with each other and contrasting evidence about their effectiveness, as a result of poor testing under real world conditions.
NUDGE has been conceived to unleash the potential of behavioural interventions for long-lasting energy efficiency behaviour changes, paving the way to the generalized use of such interventions as a worthy addition to the policy-making toolbox. We take a mixed approach to the consumer analysis and intervention design with tasks combining surveys and field trials. Firmly rooted in behavioural science methods, we will study individual psychological and contextual variables underlying consumers’ behaviour to tailor the design of behavioural interventions for them, with a clear bias towards interventions of the nudging type.
The designed interventions are compared against traditional ones in field trials (pilots) in five different EU states, exhibiting striking diversity in terms of innovative energy usage scenarios (e.g. PV production for EV charging, DR for natural gas), demographic and socio-economic variables of the involved populations, mediation platforms for operationalizing the intervention (smart mobile apps, dashboards, web portals, educational material and intergenerational learning practices).
NUDGE has been conceived to unleash the potential of behavioural interventions for long-lasting energy efficiency behaviour changes, paving the way to the generalized use of such interventions as a worthy addition to the policy-making toolbox. We take a mixed approach to the consumer analysis and intervention design with tasks combining surveys and field trials. Firmly rooted in behavioural science methods, we will study individual psychological and contextual variables underlying consumers’ behaviour to tailor the design of behavioural interventions for them, with a clear bias towards interventions of the nudging type.
The designed interventions are compared against traditional ones in field trials (pilots) in five different EU states, exhibiting striking diversity in terms of innovative energy usage scenarios (e.g. PV production for EV charging, DR for natural gas), demographic and socio-economic variables of the involved populations, mediation platforms for operationalizing the intervention (smart mobile apps, dashboards, web portals, educational material and intergenerational learning practices).
The NUDGE project has advanced significantly towards its objectives that include the design of behavioural interventions according to individual psychological and contextual variables; the development of a research protocol to measure the impact of behavioural interventions; the execution of field trials to implement behavioural interventions; and activities to provide recommendations to policy makers and relevant stakeholders.
Progress has been made on the identification of psychological and contextual variables that determine the consumers’ behaviour with respect to energy-saving and their characterization/profiling according to those variables. This activity takes as input two types of data: large-scale web survey data, collected from individuals across Europe and more custom questionnaires obtained from the participants of the pilot trials, also in the context of co-creation sessions that have been organized at the pilot sites. These data have been subsequently used for two types of analyses: (a) the derivation of strong predictors of consumers’ intentions to save energy; and (b) the segmentation of the consumers into distinct sociopsychological profiles/classes, that facilitate the selection of behavioural interventions.
NUDGE developed an overview of nudging best practices, and derived suggested interventions that were categorised and assigned ranked according to interest, prevalence and effectiveness. A visual guide was created to provide an overview of all nudges and nudging techniques to support the pilots in the development of their own nudges. NUDGE introduced a methodology for assessing the effectiveness of the interventions and guidelines were created for the five pilots.
In the first 18 months progress was also made towards setting up the field trials (pilots) that will dominate the second half of the project, and which will be implementing mixes of behaviour-based interventions. While pilot preparations advanced at slower than planned pace, the first interventions have kicked off within the expected period. There exist differences between the timing in each pilot, where some have progressed fast (notably in DE and GR) others have lagged due to the compounding nature of multiple risks materializing (most notably in HR). The development of a monitoring platform for pilot data collection was successfully accomplished for all the pilots. Digital equipment (meters, controllers, gateways) installations at participant households have been concluded for the DE pilot, while the work is at a final stage for PT and GR pilots. The HR pilot is currently behind schedule. Pilot monitoring tools have been prepared and connected with the central platform for all the pilots. Basic versions of pilot-specific apps and platforms for energy data visualization have been developed and distributed to participants. The engagement of participants in each pilot has been successful, taking into consideration pilot-specific eligibility criteria, although some difficulties in conducting recruitment activities due to Covid-19 pandemic were experienced. The consortium has been effective in identifying most risks and implementing effective mitigation actions. Overall, the pilot development progress experienced some delays, while continuous efforts were successful in overcoming difficulties and ensuring that the proper actions are implemented in order to do not compromise the project expected outputs.
Progress has been made on the identification of psychological and contextual variables that determine the consumers’ behaviour with respect to energy-saving and their characterization/profiling according to those variables. This activity takes as input two types of data: large-scale web survey data, collected from individuals across Europe and more custom questionnaires obtained from the participants of the pilot trials, also in the context of co-creation sessions that have been organized at the pilot sites. These data have been subsequently used for two types of analyses: (a) the derivation of strong predictors of consumers’ intentions to save energy; and (b) the segmentation of the consumers into distinct sociopsychological profiles/classes, that facilitate the selection of behavioural interventions.
NUDGE developed an overview of nudging best practices, and derived suggested interventions that were categorised and assigned ranked according to interest, prevalence and effectiveness. A visual guide was created to provide an overview of all nudges and nudging techniques to support the pilots in the development of their own nudges. NUDGE introduced a methodology for assessing the effectiveness of the interventions and guidelines were created for the five pilots.
In the first 18 months progress was also made towards setting up the field trials (pilots) that will dominate the second half of the project, and which will be implementing mixes of behaviour-based interventions. While pilot preparations advanced at slower than planned pace, the first interventions have kicked off within the expected period. There exist differences between the timing in each pilot, where some have progressed fast (notably in DE and GR) others have lagged due to the compounding nature of multiple risks materializing (most notably in HR). The development of a monitoring platform for pilot data collection was successfully accomplished for all the pilots. Digital equipment (meters, controllers, gateways) installations at participant households have been concluded for the DE pilot, while the work is at a final stage for PT and GR pilots. The HR pilot is currently behind schedule. Pilot monitoring tools have been prepared and connected with the central platform for all the pilots. Basic versions of pilot-specific apps and platforms for energy data visualization have been developed and distributed to participants. The engagement of participants in each pilot has been successful, taking into consideration pilot-specific eligibility criteria, although some difficulties in conducting recruitment activities due to Covid-19 pandemic were experienced. The consortium has been effective in identifying most risks and implementing effective mitigation actions. Overall, the pilot development progress experienced some delays, while continuous efforts were successful in overcoming difficulties and ensuring that the proper actions are implemented in order to do not compromise the project expected outputs.
Immediate impacts of NUDGE consist of interventions designed using behavioural levels, and project partners have planned in each demo at least three nudging interventions. These have begun being implemented as of January 2022, led by the Greek pilot. By April 2022 all demos will have begun the execution of nudging interventions, or completed them. There is certainty that these nudging innovation will be retained by commercial partners MVV/beegy and DOMX as they expand and offer them to their clientele.
A major impact of NUDGE is to support policies to foster investments in energy efficiency. This is expected towards the end of the project, following the piloting of interventions and the availability of concrete results to promote towards policy makers, regional authorities and programme managers.
Critical preliminary actions towards the realisation of this impact have been undertaken in Croatia in the context of discussions with local authorities, in mass outreach activities in Belgium through the school system and parents, in Greece through bilateral discussions with the energy agency, and in Portugal with the involvement of the Porto Energy Agency in the application of behavioural interventions to a subset of households in the context of a programme on energy poverty.
The impacts of NUDGE are dependent on the engagement of public officers, private actors and other stakeholders. Events realised to display the first results of NUDGE have been attended by multiple stakeholders: consumers, Civil Society & NGOs, Policy makers at local, regional, national & EU levels, and energy agencies. NUDGE has achieved a combined outreach in social media of 4,491 persons/accounts, and an estimated outreach of over 20,000 persons through legacy media outlets (newspapers and specialized press).
Long-term impacts, such as consumers adopting a more sustainable energy behaviour, will become visible in the second half of the project, after nudging interventions have had a cool-down period, where it will be possible to observe if pilot participant habits return to baseline or not and by what margin.
However, preliminary, anecdotal evidence suggest that, at least for the pilot participants in the German and Greek demos, that there is willingness to retain the nudging features. Pilot participants have informed pilot leaders that the availability of these features is very welcomed, and they would not wish to have them de-activated.
A major impact of NUDGE is to support policies to foster investments in energy efficiency. This is expected towards the end of the project, following the piloting of interventions and the availability of concrete results to promote towards policy makers, regional authorities and programme managers.
Critical preliminary actions towards the realisation of this impact have been undertaken in Croatia in the context of discussions with local authorities, in mass outreach activities in Belgium through the school system and parents, in Greece through bilateral discussions with the energy agency, and in Portugal with the involvement of the Porto Energy Agency in the application of behavioural interventions to a subset of households in the context of a programme on energy poverty.
The impacts of NUDGE are dependent on the engagement of public officers, private actors and other stakeholders. Events realised to display the first results of NUDGE have been attended by multiple stakeholders: consumers, Civil Society & NGOs, Policy makers at local, regional, national & EU levels, and energy agencies. NUDGE has achieved a combined outreach in social media of 4,491 persons/accounts, and an estimated outreach of over 20,000 persons through legacy media outlets (newspapers and specialized press).
Long-term impacts, such as consumers adopting a more sustainable energy behaviour, will become visible in the second half of the project, after nudging interventions have had a cool-down period, where it will be possible to observe if pilot participant habits return to baseline or not and by what margin.
However, preliminary, anecdotal evidence suggest that, at least for the pilot participants in the German and Greek demos, that there is willingness to retain the nudging features. Pilot participants have informed pilot leaders that the availability of these features is very welcomed, and they would not wish to have them de-activated.