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NUDging consumers towards enerGy Efficiency through behavioral science

Project description

Individualised behavioural nudging for responsible energy consumption

There is a pressing need to convince people to be more responsible and exhibit more efficient behaviour towards energy consumption. Unfortunately, present interventions for policy-making do not appear to be successful enough due to a lack of customer personalisation as well as poor testing conditions. The EU-funded NUDGE project will design behavioural interventions that will result in lasting energy efficiency behaviour. NUDGE will apply an approach combining the analysis of consumer psychology and intervention design tasks based on tests and field trials. Behavioural science methods will be used to study the bases of individual behaviour and to tailor interventions for them. New interventions will be tested in five different EU states, presenting targeted variables, involved demographics and intervention forms.

Objective

Efforts to induce energy-friendly behavior from end users through behavioral interventions are characterized by lack of customer personalization (“one-size-fits-all interventions”), partial understanding about how different interventions interact with each other and contrasting evidence about their effectiveness, as a result of poor testing under real world conditions. The NUDGE project has been conceived to unleash the potential of behavioral interventions for long-lasting energy efficiency behavior changes, paving the way to the generalized use of such interventions as a worthy addition to the policy-making toolbox. We take a mixed approach to the consumer analysis and intervention design tasks combining surveys and field trials. Firmly rooted in behavioral science methods, we study individual psychological and contextual variables underlying consumers’ behavior to tailor the design of behavioral interventions for them, with a clear bias towards interventions of the nudging type. The designed interventions are compared against traditional ones in field trials (pilots) in five different EU states, exhibiting striking diversity in terms of innovative energy usage scenarios (e.g. PV production for EV charging, DR for natural gas), demographic and socio-economic variables of the involved populations, mediation platforms for operationalizing the intervention (smart mobile apps, dashboards, web portals, educational material and intergenerational learning practices). We are a multidisciplinary team of 10 partners marking solid expertise in behavioral science, (mobile) user interface and policy design; synergies of different stakeholders (energy providers/cooperative/communities, consumer associations, technology providers); and extensive networks of expert groups, industrial & consumer associations amplifying our potential for tangible impact on policy-making at all levels.

Call for proposal

H2020-LC-SC3-2018-2019-2020

See other projects for this call

Sub call

H2020-LC-SC3-EE-2020-1

Coordinator

INSTITUTE FOR EUROPEAN ENERGY AND CLIMATE POLICY STICHTING
Net EU contribution
€ 226 625,00
Address
KINGSFORDWEG 151
1043 GR Amsterdam
Netherlands

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Region
West-Nederland Noord-Holland Groot-Amsterdam
Activity type
Research Organisations
Links
Total cost
€ 226 625,00

Participants (10)