Transforming Energy Efficiency into an Entirely New Customer Experience—An Effective Way to Engage Consumers—The UtilitEE Project Concept

Abstract

In this paper, we present the concept of UtilitEE project, an innovative and realistic solution for delivering a customer-oriented Behavioural Change Framework based on an open ICT ecosystem integrated into the building with low cost, off-the-shelf sensors. The solution also incorporates human-centric intelligent control features that use occupant comfort profiles and supportively control HVAC and lighting systems to minimize energy waste, while always keeping occupants comfortable and preserving a healthy indoor environment. Key part of the technical development work is the end users' involvement in co-designing the user interfaces and its features. In the following sections, the objectives and the preliminary high-level system architecture are presented along with the pilot deployment activities for system validation and demonstration.

Keywords

• behavioural change
• customer engagement
• energy behaviour profiling
• human-centric intelligent guidance
• semi-control
• energy-as-a-service
• new business models