Gamification for Energy Efficiency of communities and Buildings by abhiktayal2802

Hello Abhik. Your gaming success awards no doubt incentivize participation - yep, it's human nature. The "marginal" improvement in savings do encroach upon one's convenience overtime, i.e., the first month's savings are the result of implementing the more obvious savings methods (e.g., room temp settings, reduced lighting, new bulbs, etc.). But with each subsequent month, the choices become fewer and with less effect and more inconvenience. But you get an A for effort on this idea. This could be started in any country - promoted well beyond the India launch. Suggest you look at DoE's Energy Star framework. Lots of good competitive savings aspects to consider. Keep up the good work. Please take a look: http://www.energystar.gov/buildings/about-us/how-can-we-help-you/communicate/energy-star-communications-toolkit/motivate-competition-0 Namaste! Mark

Dear Abhik, The proposal is really interesting. BEE has launched several program on energy efficiency in India. Through BEE this kind of program can expand the boundary to engage interest of every household in the country. If you can refer to this link: https://social.opower.com/. They have adopted similar concept of driving efficiency by community involvement. Also you will need to work on more further details of timeline, cost and resource requirement for your proposal. All the best!

Hello - It is a great idea. However, as far as I familiar with households in developing countries. Though, they need energy, also they want reduce the energy bills. That is why mostly there are electricity thefts to meet their needs. Without determining the what is minimum amount of energy required per capita and are we actually meeting the energy needs. The gamification may indirectly undermine the development process, or gamification in developing world may be futile. In your proposal, a clear relationship between energy consumption and development is not establish. If you can establish that link. I hope it will clarify the need of gamification idea. Also, have you though about collusion among households ? Yours is not pure prisoner dilemma, there may be collusion. Best

Dear Vishal, Thanks for your supporting comments highlighting the importance of BEE and pointing towards Opower. I am continuously working on updating my project and adding additional details. Best, Abhik

Hello Sardar, I understand what you are highlighting. It is true that households in developing countries look to reduce their energy bills and resort to energy theft. However, my current customers in consideration are from large Indian Metros (here proper mechanism to prevent energy theft is present) and later expand to other cities once they have climbed the ladder. Regarding development, I do not think the idea intends to hamper it. Rather it a way for people to reduce their bills and additionally get rewarded for reducing. The energy saved could be utilized in other activities by the utility companies since there is great shortage of energy. In addition it serves the purpose of developing the habit of energy saving where the whole family is involved and taking measures in the direction. We intend to include schools, institutions in the program too. I am unable to analyze how thee would be collusion. A little help from you may support me. Your analyzes has been very valuable. Please let me know for further improvement of this plan. Regards Abhik

Hello @ Abhik - Is there are any figures for per capita consumption of targeted area ? You have mentioned 20-25 percent reduction in electricity consumption. I believe, the communal system in which middle classes are living are using less electricity as compared to nuclear families. However, statistics explaining consumption and how will 20-25% will make the difference in the daily life of these people will improve the understanding about the project. Will comment on collusion in next comments. Best

@Abhik, thank you so much for your work to-date on the proposal. I think that this is indeed an innovative way to address the central question of this contest: “How can GHG emissions from the electricity generation sector be minimised?" That said, I think that it could benefit with some refinement and addition of the kind of information that @jessicathompson pointed to in her comment. I think that building on the work of Opower makes a lot of sense and perhaps even partnering with Opower (or another such technology provider) to adapt their technology and experience in the 'developed' world. It would not make sense to reinvent the wheel technologically-speaking but applying this model in India and elsewhere would certainly require some support from companies/orgs with more local market experience.

Hey Jessica, Thanks for your valuable feedback. I am working on proposal and trying to incorporate the critical points you have mentioned. I would like to again request you to critically review once I update my proposal with all necessary information. Regards Abhik

Hi Abhik, Great idea to motivate the electricity users to reduce the energy demand in buildings. The proposal slightly deviates from the objective of reducing emissions from the electricity "generation sector" or from the supply side. The concept is similar to the BEE's Perform Achieve Trade (PAT) for industry sector and hence I believe establishing a similar system for the building sector will not be a challenge. Also this 'Gamification' could be a tool to promote green building concepts among the public. To add some clarity on the proposal you may focus on: 1. You may add some technologies the building sector may adopt to reduce energy consumption by 25% and the expected cost benefits / payback for the building owners to make the bet more attractive 2. How the funding for the rewards will be sourced? from utilities? and how the bet fee will be utilized? Cost of administration vs. the benefits achieved by the program? All the best, Saravanan.

The idea is a good one. Games have long been shown to be a motivator for all kinds of human activity. Would households pay for a "bet" even if they were interested in saving energy? Where would the money come from to pay for winners? Would it come from the money paid for in bets? That seems unfeasible given that the game is likely to feature a high percentage of highly motivated participants, such that far more than one out of thirty are likely to succeed. How would savings be determined? Indeed, it seems as though most of the savings are likely to come from deprivation, such as living in the backyard in a tent for a few months. Where would the money come from to pay for expensive efficiency improvements like new windows? To give my thoughts on the individual judging categories, there are companies in the US that run games to drive utility efficiency program savings, so the idea is not completely novel, although it does take a slightly different form. How it would work is only described in sketchy language, such that I can't tell if it's workable or not. Far too many details are left unaccounted for, even given the format of the application. The idea is indeed appealing, but the submission is far from clear or appealing. Given the entrant's enthusiasm, I'd suggest trying it out on a small scale, such as with a single group of families.