New project: EnerGAware – Energy Game for Awareness of energy efficiency in social housing communities

A new eViz spin-off project called EnerGAware has been funded under the EU Horizon 2020 programme (EE 11 2014: New ICT-based solutions for energy efficiency). The team includes Dr Alba Fuertes, Dr Rory Jones, Dr Sabine Pahl and Prof. Pieter de Wilde, plus a host of European partners.

The main objective of the EnerGAware project is to achieve a 15-30% energy consumption and emissions reduction in a social housing pilot and increase the social tenants’ understanding and engagement in energy efficiency. The EnerGAware project will develop and test, in publically owned social housing, 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. 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.

EnerGAware

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