Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - UtilitEE (Utility Business Model Transformation through human-centric behavioural interventions and ICT tools for Energy Efficiency)

Teaser

As EU policy presses for energy usage reduction and consumers expect human-centric services, energy utilities seek new sources of revenue instead of only providing “kWhs”. In this context, the UtilitEE project develops a customer-oriented Behavioural Change Framework;...

Summary

As EU policy presses for energy usage reduction and consumers expect human-centric services, energy utilities seek new sources of revenue instead of only providing “kWhs”. In this context, the UtilitEE project develops a customer-oriented Behavioural Change Framework; Energy-as-a-Service delivery approach via an open ICT ecosystem. The project focuses on energy-hungry activities, energy waste identification and personalized messages to engage users into a continuous process of awareness-raising and learning to reduce their energy consumption. Consumer-centricity is ensured through a co-design process.
Utilities are currently facing political pressure to reduce the energy use of their customers and associated GHG emissions; whereas, customers are becoming more aware and enjoying the benefits of modern technology and IT solutions. Faced with these realities, energy utilities must seek new business models and shift from being commodity providers to providing energy-efficiency related services.
The UtilitEE project provides a customer-oriented Behavioural Change Framework based on an open ICT ecosystem integrated into the building via low cost, off-the-shelf sensors. It also incorporates human-centric intelligent control features that use occupant comfort profiles and supportively control HVAC and lighting systems to minimize energy waste, while always keeping occupants comfortable and preserving a healthy indoor environment. Key part of the technical development work is the end users\' involvement in co-designing the user interfaces and their features.
UtilitEE’s impact is assessed based on four different factors; the user’s behaviour change, the energy savings, the number of people reached and the CO2 emissions reduction. In the European countries participating in the project, 9 commercial and 180 residential buildings have been chosen to participate in the active pilot trials. A combination of behavioural triggering methods such as energy data analytics, personalized recommendations, social mechanics and reward mechanisms to motivate customers to take ownership of their energy-reduction behaviour and several levels of Building Intelligence (control & monitoring functionalities) are adopted aiming to eliminate energy waste as much as possible without compromising indoor comfort and health requirements of the end user.
The UtilitEE objectives fall into two main categories, the Scientific and Technological objectives and the Business & Market objectives. This combination leads to a summary of 4 main pillars:
1. Enabling Significant Energy Savings through Sustainable and Persistent Energy Behaviour Change
2. Fostering Continuous Consumer Engagement through a User-Driven Energy Behaviour Change Framework that addresses consumers with Intuitive, Actionable Messages
3. Introducing Novel Utility Business Models and Roles enabling the deep transformation of current business-as-usual utility practices and enhancing their viability in evolving market conditions
4. Establish an Open Innovation Framework to Support Real-Life Pilot Deployment & Socio-Economic Evidence

Work performed

In Reporting Period 1, UtilitEE fulfilled the work plan, respecting the objectives of the project and delivered all related deliverables. The majority of UtilitEE milestones planned were reached in the first Reporting Period. As described in the DoW, the UtilitEE implementation methodology adopts an iterative research and development approach. In the first reporting period (M1 – M18) UtilitEE performed its Inception Phase and afterwards the first circle of the Design & Development activity blocks. These two key blocks consisted in: a) the analysis and the elicitation of the overall solution requirements b) the design (architectural design, energy behavioural change specifications and novel business models) c) in the configuration (configuration and integration, prototyping and fine-tuning, training documentation) and in the c) initial pilot deployment.
The first UtilitEE Research and Development Iteration followed the Inception Phase by including the overall System Architecture and the Conceptual Models that will drive the forthcoming phases. The R&D blocks can be regarded as the core phases of the project and they delivered key scientific and technical results namely: the definition of the Systemic and Measurement & Verification specifications by concluding with adequate Key Performance Indicators for detailed evaluation, the UtilitEE Energy Behaviour Change Approach Framework , the UtilitEE Architecture Design of the technology Framework spanning from energy use capture and processing to the ambient user interfaces for consumers and utilities.
Following the preparatory activities, On-site visits to the pilot demonstration sites to audit the building characteristics took place and were documented, revealing in detail the additional equipment that is required at pilot sites for the operation of the UtilitEE solution. Finally, an execution plan regarding the respective activities of the UtilitEE pilots (from equipment installation to pilot roll-out and evaluation) has been documented. The pilot site installations are complete and led to initiation of baseline activities before the UtilitEE deployment and roll-out. UtilitEE follows a “Pilot and Use Case driven implementation approach” where the investigation of advanced techniques and tool development is guided by user requirements, and pilots opted in to – and further detailed - specific use cases and business models.
This will enable the extraction of valuable conclusions considering the voice of the end user on the UtilitEE tools acceptance and the alignment of the UtilitEE framework to the market dynamics as experienced by the utilities. At the moment, this is envisaged as the assessment of the trade-off between three key parameters, namely: user acceptance, energy efficiency and the degree of automation.
Finally, UtilitEE initiated and carried out, strategic, project-wide dissemination, communication and exploitation activities throughout RP1. Furthermore, the project partners started to elaborate on joint technology exploitation activities with the assistance of SSERR kindly offered by the European Commission. This service has helped toward the definition of principal roles for successful exploitation of project outcomes, but also toward the identification of the best position for each partner in the respective market value chain. Concrete business scenarios are assessed with respect to a possible commercial exploitation route.

Final results

UtilitEE proposes a universal behavioural change framework focusing on the discovery, quantification and revelation of energy-hungry activities, aiming to convey meaningful energy-use feedback to occupants and engage the customer into a continuous process of learning and improvement towards energy efficiency. The UtilitEE project defines, experiments with and validates first-of-a-kind business models for future-looking retailers that will transform them from commodity providers to energy as-a-service providers. The UtilitEE solution is aiming to reduce GHG emissions, create significant number of jobs across EU and assist on placing end users in the heart of the energy transition, by reducing the energy cost and facilitate the participation of the end user in novel energy markets by harnessing technology.

Website & more info

More info: https://www.utilitee.eu/.