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Towards an Energy Social Network

Lessons Learned from Gamification as On-board Engagement Tool for Energy Communities in Domestic Units

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Methodologies and Intelligent Systems for Technology Enhanced Learning, Workshops - 13th International Conference (MIS4TEL 2023)

Abstract

As a compromised solution between the unavoidable presence of technology and the need to promote more sustainable consumption, different gamification apps about energy have been developed over the past years. In addition to this, the following paper shares the lessons learned from the development of an on-board engagement service, rooted in the sustainable consumption (SC) gamification and social network concept. Through challenges and social networking, occupants are enabled to learn about their domestic energy consumption patterns and engage toward a more sustainable one. The service designed mainly as a mobile app, has been shaped and improved through a series of testing and continuous feedback from actual users belonging to the new user-centric energy communities – the core of an Horizon2020 project called ReDream. Therefore, the service represents the means of the ReDream on-boarding engagement strategy and as such has been tested in four different communities: Italy, Croatia, the UK, and Spain. Thus, the service is validated as a flexible tool promoting engagement and education regarding sustainable energy consumption in different social environments. Consequently, the introduced service has been shown to lower the barrier and involve people, covering the emerging need for a “pre-onboarding” environment, friendly and secure.

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Acknowledgements

All the above work would simply not have been possible without the help, the support and the collaborative huge work of all our partners, starting from the coordinators of Comillas University, in Madrid, Spain, and followed by the Stemy company, down to the other partners of Soulsigh (social engagement), OMIE (energy market experts), OLIVOEnergy (energy market experts), NTUA University of Athens (comfort and data management), UBFC Univetrsity (smart mobility) and the four Demo Leaders: ZEZ (Croatia), BWCE (Bath and West Community Energy, UK), Biodistretto della Via Amerina e delle Forre (Italy), Energetica (Spain). The Redream project is funded by the European Commission under the Grant Agreement number ID: 957837.

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Correspondence to Stefano Converso , Ivana Veselinova , Gabriele Roselli or Hamed Abbasi Mofrad .

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Converso, S., Veselinova, I., Roselli, G., Mofrad, H.A. (2023). Towards an Energy Social Network. In: Kubincová, Z., Caruso, F., Kim, Te., Ivanova, M., Lancia, L., Pellegrino, M.A. (eds) Methodologies and Intelligent Systems for Technology Enhanced Learning, Workshops - 13th International Conference. MIS4TEL 2023. Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems, vol 769. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-42134-1_32

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