EnerGAware Energy Game for Awareness of energy efficiency in social housing communities

The main objective of the EnerGAware project (http://www.energaware.eu) is to decrease energy consumption and emissions in an affordable housing pilot and increase the affordable housing tenants’ understanding and engagement in energy efficiency. The EnerGAware project will develop and test, in 100 affordable homes, a serious game that will be linked to the actual energy consumption (smart meter data) of the game user’s home and embedded in social media and networking tools.

The EnerGAware solution will provide an innovative IT ecosystem in which users can design their own virtual home and Avatar and learn about the potential energy savings from installing energy-efficiency measures and changing user behaviour, whilst maintaining the comfort of their Avatar. The user will need to learn to balance the energy consumption, comfort and financial cost of their actions. Energy savings achieved both virtually in the game, calculated by building performance simulation, and in reality, in the users’ actual homes, measured through smart meter data, will enable progression in the serious game. The social media features will provide users a platform to share data of their achievements, compete with each other, give energy advice, as well as, join together to form virtual energy communities. With a budget of over 1 million €, the EnerGAware solution will be developed and deployed with the ‘cleanweb’ philosophy in mind: “Capital light, Quick to market and Quick to scale”, therefore the EnerGAware project will aim to go beyond just testing in a social housing pilot, but will seek commercial exploitation of the solution at the end of the project, through our industrial partners, in particular EDF Energy, a global energy provider, with 38 million European energy customers.

The project started in 2015 and was completed in 2018. It benefited the energy-poor and low-income population. It addressed the topics of behaviour, idea development/ innovation, information and awareness and energy efficiency.