To improve energy efficiency, grid operators have traditionally focused on the supply side—for example, by switching to sustainable power sources or insulating power lines. It has been harder for them to engage with consumers and make any meaningful dent in the demand side. But smart grids are changing the way consumers interact with municipal resources. Now, utilities can share usage data with consumers themselves. With this wealth of data at their fingertips, consumers can decide how best to reduce their own consumption. So far, programs that offer this kind of insight have relied on the information itself to motivate participants. But even when energy consumption is monitored and shared across an entire community, there is little reason for its members to stay engaged long enough to change their habits.
According to one project, the key may lie in the art of incentivization. Mustafa Alparslan Zehir , a graduate researcher at Istanbul Technical University who specializes in grid engineering, points out that large-scale demand-side efforts to promote energy-efficient behaviors have mostly failed to keep consumers engaged for more than a few months. These programs “don’t motivate ongoing participation,” says Zehir. “People leave after they’ve consumed all the content.” This is a problem, he says, because participants who stick with a program longer are more likely to make long-term behavioral changes. Now, through an international project called GReSBAS , Zehir and his colleagues are trying to persuade consumers to reduce their energy use with the help of a unique gamified platform. Based in Istanbul, GReSBAS encourages participants at the project’s demonstration sites in Turkey and Portugal to use a real-time platform to track their daily energy consumption. Participants compete in household-, building-, and neighborhood-wide contests, and set their own goals and records for energy use over time. That the […]