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Energy-feedback services provided by utilities: Lessons learnt from the Empowering project

11/07/2016

Dr. Stoyan Danov, CIMNE-BEE Group

sdanov@cimne.upc.edu

Edinburgh, 4-5 July, 2016

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The International Centre for Numerical Methods in Engineering (CIMNE) is a public research centre of the UPC. It was founded in 1987 and has 5 international headquarters and 23

research groups in 17 countries. It is formed by 200 researchers and support staff from 20 nationalities.

It has participated in 910 R+D international projects and promoted 8 start-ups.

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The Building, Energy and Environment Group (BEE Group) is an

autonomous department of CIMNE founded in 2001. The BEE Group’s staff consists of 15 researchers from the areas of

physics, engineering, ICT, statistics and environmental sciences.

Consumption feedback information EU supported projects: • eSESH- Saving Energy in Social Housing with ICT, http://www.esesh.eu

• BECA – Balanced European Conservation Approach: ICT services for resource saving in social housing, http://www.beca-project.eu

• SmartSpaces - Saving Energy in Europe's Public Buildings Using ICT, http://www.smartspaces.eu

• ENCERTICUS – Energy Certification and Communication Technologies for User Satisfaction, http://www.med-encerticus.eu

Start up company promoted: INERGY, http://inergybcn.com

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Objectives

Objectives within the project action • Implement billing information services and software

• Achieve measurable savings of 3-10%

• Achieve 80 % positive response from service users

Strategic objectives beyond the project • Widespread adoption of the Empowering services

(2.5% of the electricity and gas market of the targeted countries by 2020)

• 6 new utilities rolling out empowerment services in other countries

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Scope: • 344.000 customers participate in the project

• 4 pilot sites (Austria, Spain, France, Italy)

Consortium: • 12 participants from 5 EU countries (At, Be, Es, Fr, It)

• 4 utility companies (At, Es, Fr, It)

• well balanced team of R&D specialists and social agents

Time frame: 36 months (April 2013 – March 2016)

The Empowering project

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How services operate?

Service groups

• Comparison with similar households

• Comparisons with own previous consumption

• Detailed consumption displaying

• Personalised energy saving tips

• Consumption-weather dependence

• Consumption prediction

• Alerts

Continuing and evolving service:

www.beegroup-cimne.com

Big Data Analytics - BEE Data Open source solution EUPL v1.1

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How services operate?

Configurable analytic modules

Utility customer interfaces

Utility-tailored solution

Alerts

Personalised energy

saving tips

Comparison with similar households

Comparisons with own previous

consumption

Consumption prediction

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Experimental design

Methodology Energy savings evaluation

• Difference in difference

Customer satisfaction and preferences

• SERVQUAL methodology

• Qualitative & Quantitative surveys

• Focus groups

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Results

Energy savings

• Austria (Linz Strom):

• Span (El Gas):

• France (GEG):

• Italy (IREN):

Customer satisfaction • 20% average increase in the satisfaction with the utility-

provided information

electricity: - 5,4%

electricity: - 6% to -11%

electricity: - 3% to -21% (higher saving for electrical heating/hot water users)

gas: - 4%

electricity: from +1,7% to -5,5%

district heating: - 5% to -6%

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Customer preferences

What is the most valuable information for the customers?

Customer preferences for information were gathered from 964 utility customers in Austria, France, Italy, Spain and Denmark

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Energy user profiles

• Economic rationale Keywords: economic savings, energy budget control, concrete advices and tips, difficulty to understand tariffs/type of contracts/kWh

• Economic and ecologic rationale Keywords: economic and energy savings, advices and tips to save energy, self-esteem

• Energetic rationale Keywords: new energy technologies, control, efficiency, consumption optimisation

• Ecologic rationale Keywords: ecology, greenhouse gas emissions reduction, climate change, sustainability

Sociological study French pilot (27 semi-directive interviews)

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Findings

► Strong belief in material investment (insulation, equipment, etc.), more than in behaviour… but at the same time a strong demand of energy savings tips and advices

► Visual presentation plays a key role

► Social norm is important determinant of behaviour and can lead to contradictions (rebound effect)

► Services must be adapted to the “energy profiles”:

• “Economic rationale”: very simple message

• “Energetic rationale”: explanation of the method for obtaining the results

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Findings

Customer engagement is a key

► Web tools and mobile apps • Only for interested users (opt-in)

• High customisation capabilities, but…

• Low overall usage (2 – 5 %)

► Energy reports (opt-out) • Wide reach, arrives to everybody, but …

• No unique design and content satisfying everybody (language & design is important)

• Regulatory hurdles for opt-out

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Service delivery

Combination of different user interfaces provided optimal results

► Energy report (delivered with bill)

Engagement mode: systematic recall, simple and useful information for everybody

► Web tool

Engagement mode: always available, detailed analysis of consumption for interested users

EMPOWERING’s Spanish pilot | savings per treatment type: Energy report: 6%

Energy report + Web tool: 11%

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Conclusions

What is important for customer engagement?

► Basic & actionable information for everybody (Opt-out) attractive, not overwhelming - more is less

► Easy access to additional information (Opt-in)

► Well panned initial service presentation - crucial

Impact of regulation

► Metering data access ->facilitate timely access

► Data protection & customer consent ->facilitate opt-out

► Regulated bills ->less rigid, move information to web

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Thanks for your attention!

Dr. Stoyan Danov, CIMNE-BEE Group

sdanov@cimne.upc.edu