Eco-Aware persuasive networked data devices for user engagement in energy efficiency
GreenSoul pursues higher energy efficiency in public buildings by altering the way people use energy consuming shared devices (lights, printers) and personal devices (personal pluggable appliances). For that, it applies a twofold strategy: 1)persuades users to increase their energy-awareness and change their e-consumption habits and 2)embeds intelligence in the devices to let them autonomously decide about their operation mode for energy efficiency purposes. For the first part, it will use a variety of techniques, from persuasive social applications to physical interaction mechanisms linked to the devices. For the second part, it will learn from the usage habits, acting only when an energy wasteful behaviour is detected or the users do not heed the devices’ suggestions. The aim is to add a green-soul to devices in a pluggable manner to avoid costly replacement of equipment and the corresponding disposal of old-fashioned devices to the landfill.
 
GreenSoul’s exploitation potential is addressed towards buildings of public use. There, the persuasion of users is particularly challenging since they hardly perceive the benefits of having eco-friendly behaviour, i.e. they do not pay the electricity bill. GreenSoul will design and develop an integrated ICT platform to: a) improve users awareness of their energy consumption habits; b)study the ecological behaviour of the people in shared environments; c)analyse the effectiveness of different persuasion techniques; d)assist users through a decision-support engine’s recommendations; and e)provide socio-economic evidence about the viability of the changes proposed.
 
GreenSoul aims to prove that combined behavioural and ICT interventions over public buildings result in energy savings which surpass 20%. It will be deployed in five building pilots at different climatic areas and associated to different usage and facilities, ensuring the cross-country and cross-building analysis of the impact of GreenSoul.