Page 39 - European Energy Innovation - Summer 2016 publication
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Summer 2016 European Energy Innovation 39
COMMUNICATION
YouPower: a social platform for
participation, awareness and
engagement by CIVIS project
CIVIS project’s back in these pages to tell you how
things have been going since September 2015,
when we first wrote about the project, presenting its
structure, objectives and actions foreseen.
The project, co-financed by the Seventh framework The platform consists of three interrelated parts:
programme of the European Commission, uses an
experiment-driven R&D approach that involves fours • The “Action Suggestion” part is designed to
pilot neighborhoods, two of which are located in provide users with easy access to practical and
Italy (Trentino region) and two in Sweden (within implementable recommendations (and tips) for
the city of Stockholm). CIVIS’s aim is to contribute energy conservation and to motivate them to learn
to the design of a fairer, more sustainable, energy- and practice new energy conservation behaviors
optimised smart city. The project focuses on the ICT- until they become new habits that are embedded
enabled social dimension to harness the potential of in the specific context of their every life.
innovation of individuals and collectives with respect
to energy prosumption. CIVIS links energy, ICT and • The “Housing Cooperative” part is tailored for
society to achieve significant impacts in terms of CO2 Stockholm (Sweden) test site where residents belong
reduction and new forms of social innovation. to local housing cooperative that manage the
properties and related issues (including energy). It
The first part of the project has been devoted to provides energy information about a user’s own and
the deep understating of the state of the art of the other cooperatives and supports communication
interdisciplinary topics included in the structure of between cooperatives’ energy managers.
the project: smart technologies available on the
market, business models already tested, the social • The third part, designed for Trento (Italy)
behavior of local communities in relation to energy- test site, mainly focuses on leveraging load-
related initiatives, the possible ways social network shifting, maximizing self-consumption to match
and ICT can be integrated to local actions. production peaks of locally-installed Renewable
Energy Sources. A dynamic time-of-use signal in
Projects partners, of course, have also taken action combination with a scheme for energy donations
on the test sites, creating contacts with citizens, is designed to assist the shift. In order to make
housing associations, energy cooperatives, local users aware of their consumption patterns, real-
energy initiatives and have involved these subjects time energy consumption data are displayed
into our vision and experimentation. at appliances (for those installed smart plugs),
household and community levels. l
But today we want to focus on one of the main
achievement of the project “YouPower” a social FOLLOW US:
smart grid platform (a hybrid mobile application)
designed to explore the potential and challenges E-mail: info@civisproject.eu
of ICT support for social participation, awareness Website: www.civisproject.eu
and engagement of household energy consumers Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CIVISproject
(https://app.civisproject.eu). YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/CIVISproject
https://app.civisproject.eu
The design aims to make energy more visible, inform
users’ energy know-how, promote pro-environmental
social norms, and to facilitate users in their day-to-
day life to take pro-environmental energy actions
together with online communities.
www.europeanenergyinnovation.eu
