An important effort of the project has been put on developing the serious game, Apolis Planeta. Different versions of the game have been tested and reviewed to deliver the most user-friendly game for the end-users during the demonstration. As stated below, nearly 200 test homes have been eqquiped with sensors so that energy consumption data could be measured.
In addition to the monitoring of the energy use occupants were asked to fill an environmental awareness survey before and after the pilot action. The first survey was carried out in 2017 and is not subject of the current document. The second questionnaire has been circulated among occupants in mid-June 2018 to see changes in environmental awareness. Results of this second survey are presented in the current document.
We can conclude that the project objective, to save energy using a serious games initiating behavioural change could be achieved and justified only partly.
Although no energy saving could be justified in heating energy consumption in absolute term, it was proven that users have decreased their indoor air temperature during heating season showing that they made the necessary effort on behavioural side. The decreased temperatures correspond to theoretical energy savings of 1.9% for OPAC to 10.4% in average depending on the location. In spite of that, the mean heating energy consumption did not decrease. It can be explained by the impact of factors other than occupants’ behaviour (such as heat flow from/to neighbouring apartments or changes in meteorological factors other than temperature like wind, solar yield, etc.) that could not be monitored within the frame of the project.
In domestic hot water consumption no notable decreasing or increasing trend could be remarked, the situation was similar before and after starting the pilot action. Certainly some of the users’ consumption has decreased, others’ consumption has increased, but it would have probably been so without any intervention. However, in the environmental awareness survey 22% of French homes and 54% of Spanish homes claimed that they have changed their DHW using habits in a positive way and only 3% of Spanish users thought that their consumption had increased. In most cases they take more often shower than bath compared to the situation before pilot action. Furthermore, 15% of the Spanish homes claimed that they had set lower hot water temperature than earlier.
With regards to other electric consumption no notable decreasing or increasing trend could be remarked either, the situation was similar before and after starting the pilot action. However, the environmental awareness survey showed up some important behavioural improvements particularly for Spanish homes. One positive change to mention is the increased proportion of appliances with energy class A or better for Spain. In 2017 it was 41% only, in 2018 it increased to 64%. When buying a new appliance 97% would buy a class A or better unit in Spain, 4% more than in 2017. Many occupants learned the importance of hidden consumption, because more occupants admitted to be aware of the meaning of hidden consumption.
