April 2018

The enCOMPASS platform, user apps and FUNERGY game released!

Dear Colleagues,

welcome to the third newsletter of the European H2020 project enCOMPASS (Collaborative Recommendations and Adaptive Control for Personalized Energy Saving). As you read these lines, thanks to the hard work of the entire team we are successfully releasing the first version of the enCOMPASS platform and end-user applications for energy saving!

The results of the first user tests are promising and show that the enCOMPASS app can make energy saving easy to do while also being fun and considering users’ comfort. We’ve taken special care to develop intuitive visualizations of energy consumption that refer to easily understandable metaphors from everyday life and help users to understand the real-world impact of their consumption and to achieve personal energy saving goals.

enCOMPASS app, showing startscreen, energy savings and impact (Photo: EIPCM)

This platform release includes also a first version of a context-aware recommender service that delivers energy saving tips tailored to household profile and usage context, as well as smart home sensors and a comfort level inference engine that help users save energy while keeping their comfort.

Our real-world pilots in Germany, Switzerland and Greece have also been successfully set-up with almost 300 participating households, 3 schools with around 900 students and 4 other public buildings, and we’re running into a beta test to be followed by the official start of the trial. In this issue, we share some insights into the setup and participating sites in the Swiss pilot.

Finally, the first prototype of the FUNERGY game on saving energy combining a physical card game and a digital app has been completed and is ready to be distributed in the schools of the enCOMPASS pilots. Read on to find out more about it in this newsletter, and if you’re interested in trying it out in your school let us know – we’ll be happy to share!

As always, we’ve been sharing our results and insights both through papers at scientific conferences, presentations at scientific, industry and citizen events and on our social media channels. Catch up with the latest news and publications on our website and follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn to keep in touch!

Last but not least: if you’re attending ICWE2018 in Cáceres, BEHAVE 2018 in Zurich or the European Sustainability Week 2018 in Brussels on June 4-8, let’s catch up, we will be there.

And if you’re a basketball fan, we’ve got special news for you: read on to find out how enCOMPASS is teaming up with the renowned Greek basketball team PAOK to promote energy saving!

Sincerely,

Jasminko Novak

enCOMPASS Deputy Project Director

Swiss Pilot

At the Swiss pilot site, all activities will take place in Contone, a fraction of the Municipality of Gambarogno. Overall, 614 smart meters were installed. Thanks to the enCOMPASS multisensors, additional information such as presence, luminance, temperature and humidity can be measured.

The pilot is involving the local school and municipal building after meetings with both the building managers, directors and employees have taken place, to plan sensors installation and first information events. Furthermore, two requirements workshops have been held, respectively involving a group of employees in the municipal building and the director and teachers of the Cadepezzo primary school.

Municipality building of Gambarogno (Photo: SUPSI)

Not only public facilities will be equipped with the enCOMPASS system. The involvement of household residents is done on a voluntary basis. The enCOMPASS system was introduced to the residents by flyers and a neighborhood assembly, attended by all types of population. 75 respondent households were selected as active participants to the enCOMPASS pilot, respecting the composition of households of the whole Contone area. Energy behavior (attitudes and perception) baseline data of all participants was taken by an online questionnaire.

A classroom of the Cadepezzo primary school (Photo: SUPSI)

The selection of the control group households is currently under progress. All remaining households in Gambarogno (between 300 and 400 households) are contacted and their energy behavior requested.

PAOK ENERGY powered by WATT+VOLT the enCOMPASS project partner

One project partner of the enCOMPASS family, the Greek electricity service provider WATT+VOLT, is sponsoring the successful Greek basketball team PAOK BC. Recently, the sponsorship was taken a step forward, creating the extremely ambitious and pioneering business project “PAOK ENERGY“. As part of this collaboration, the first WATT+VOLT store was created in the west of Thessaloniki.

In the new store, which opened its gates mid of January 2018, visitors enjoy combined benefits through a wide range of products. Privileges such as: reduced electricity prices and integrated energy services, with additional “surprises” and gifts (games tickets, signed jerseys by ex-superstar players and now president of the team Mr. Bane Prelevic etc.) of their favorite PAOK team.

“We are very happy and proud of being the first team in Greece that dared to turn a sponsorship relation into a trade co-operation. We want to thank WATT+VOLT for the confidence she has shown to the team. I’m sure that this new innovative project has a brilliant future.”

Mr. Bane Prelevic
(Photo: Pavlos Makridis)

 

 

 

enCOMPASS excited and potential users can visit either the WATT+VOLT retail store or the PAOK ENERGY stores to subscribe for taking part in the enCOMPASS pilots in Thessaloniki, gaining a smart watt kit or join a game experience in PAOK Sports Arena, and of course all the enCOMPASS project benefits. For the enCOMPASS project, this is the perfect opportunity to gain further publicity and broaden their target groups. WATT+VOLT as an active enCOMPASS Partner is cooperating with PAOK BC to wide spread the Thessaloniki Pilot and the total project’s objectives. The team’s player houses and families were among the first ones who were pleased to join the enCOMPASS approach.

PAOK BC players at the new store, signing and participating in the enCOMPASS project (Photo: Pavlos Makridis)

FUNERGY: The enCOMPASS smartphone-application for energy education

During the last project meeting in Brussels, POLIMI introduced a draft of the “Funergy” smartphone application that can be used with the card game. You can read more about the card game here in our last newsletter.

The scan card button allows the users to scan the QR code of the physical card and answer the corresponding question. But the application can also be used alone. In single player mode the player can answer a set of questions related to energy. The application will work both online and offline, downloading new questions with internet access.

App opening screen and potential question (Photo: Chiara Pasini)

The application and the questions are still in the making. Until now, the application supports only English and Italian and is available only for Android.

Correct and wrong answer in the app (Photo: Chiara Pasini)

In the future, the app will be available in five languages (English, Italian, German, French, Greek/Spanish) and also for iOS. A scoring competition function will be implemented soon. The users can compete against each other on a leaderboard.

Upcoming events

enCOMPASS @ the:

European Sustainability Week 2018 in Brussels in June, from 4th to 8th.
ICWE 2018 in Cáceres in June, from 5th to 8th.
SWEEM 2018 in Stanford CA, USA in June, 25th.
BEHAVE 2018 in Zurich in September, from 5th to 7th.

in cooperation with Hausfrage.de