BENEFFICE’s strategic objective is to reduce wasted energy by incentivising various consumer types in the wide energy consumer market. A novel ecosystem will be developed which enables and incentivises long-term energy consumption savings. BENEFFICE ecosystem leverages novel IoT enabled, low-cost, “plug-and-play-and-forget” devices, energy disaggregation and an innovative empowerment and rewards approach based on an alternative monetary currency so as to change consumers’ energy consumption behaviour. The “plug-and-play-and-forget” devices will accurately capture energy use patterns at the level of each electrical appliance and at the level of each individual user. An energy behaviour model will be used to correlate these patterns with optimal, personalised comfort levels, social profiles and characteristics (including social, economic, geographic and energy use contexts) in order to determine optimal energy use behaviour to reduce wastage of energy and to increase the use of renewable resources in the energy mix. BENEFICE will design personalized, real-time motivational paths to deliver sustained reductions in energy consumption. Customers will be incentivized to follow these paths voluntarily, through the application of novel business models that provide monetary rewards in return for progress along each personalized pathway and help build an online community of like-minded actors. These business models will be based on an innovative digital CO2 currency - CO2 Credits are awarded to actors for proven, sustained reduction in fossil fuel use. Business models that stimulate the supply of, and demand for, CO2 Credits, will be designed, tested and validated. These business models will leverage partnerships with established businesses -third party market catalysts- that recognize the potential offered by CO2 Credits both to promote reduced consumption of fossil fuels and to extend their market share by offering a new service to their clients with clear social added value.

ASSIST is a 38 month European ‘market activation - policy orientation’ project to tackle fuel poverty and support vulnerable consumers. It answers the call requirements to actively engage consumers in the energy market and positively change behaviour in relation to energy consumption and to influence design of policy at all levels to tackle fuel poverty issues. Based on the conclusion of the “Energy Citizens’ Forum”, it combines activities that address both energy and social issues as fuel poverty is not only an energy issue nor can it be tackled in isolation of the bigger issue of poverty, it will: Broaden understanding on European fuel poverty incidence and how energy support services are effectively tackling the issue, identify best practice and needs but also provide a baseline against which the activity can be compared to demonstrate its effectiveness and to inform work towards policy orientation. Create an European network and build this by ensuring quality knowledge and skills of the Vulnerable Consumer Energy Advisors (VCEA) with a supportive infrastructure for professional development and experiencing sharing. The VCEA will be in positions of direct contact with the target group in order to help mainstream energy services and, increase access and uptake for the fuel poor. The creation of the VCEA network will also encompass the recruitment of persons with direct experience of vulnerability/fuel poverty, training them to increase their employability skills but, moreover, to maximise on the peer to peer benefits that they can offer in provision of advice . With specialist VCEA and advisory strategic steering committees each nation will undertake target actions to address the specific issue. In this way the action utilises the powerful effect of target group ownership of action + bespoke solutions designed in collaboration with the target groups/end users to deliver important lessons learned for dissemination and policy influence.

Utilities are facing political pressure to reduce the energy end use by their customers and GHG emissions. Consumers, on the other hand, are empowered by the proliferation of IT interfaces and multiplication of channels. Their expectations for everything-anytime-anywhere interaction are redefining the nature of (energy) services. The advent of smart building technologies for energy efficiency reveal a mega-trend on the evolution of consumer choices and highlight the need for addressing their requirements for user-friendly, meaningful and actionable communication. Faced with these realities, business as usual is no longer an option for energy utilities. They must seek new sources of revenues by introducing bundled building energy management service packages including energy efficiency, smart controls and automation. The UtilitEE project will provide a customer-oriented Behavioural Change Framework (Energy-as-a-Service delivery approach via an open ICT ecosystem integrated into the building with off-the-shelf sensors). It focuses on discovering, quantifying and revealing energy-hungry activities and conveys meaningful feedback to engage users into a continuous process of learning and improvement. UtilitEE will leverage well-known behavioural models/ theories and standardized operational rating/ certification methods. It will also incorporate human-centric intelligent control features that use occupant comfort profiles and supportively control HVAC and lights so as to minimize energy waste, while always keeping occupants comfortable and preserving a healthy indoor environment. The framework will be validated in real-life conditions by a large population of residential and commercial consumers and aims to reduce energy use by ~30%. Validation activities will also explore future business models and go-to-market strategies for utilities. A holistic roadmap and business plan for the exploitation and replication of project results will be delivered.