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Assessing the effectiveness of gamification in reducing domestic energy consumption: Lessons learned from the EnerGAware project

Miquel Casals, Marta Gangolells, Marcel Macarulla, Núria Forcada, Alba Fuertes, Becki Hafner, Rory V. Jones

Energy and Buildings, Volume: 210, Start page: 109753

Swansea University Author: Becki Hafner

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DOI (Published version): 10.1016/j.enbuild.2019.109753

Abstract

The application of gamification to encourage energy conservation behaviour in house occupants is an emerging field of research. However, empirical evidence of its effectiveness is lacking. This paper presents lessons learnt from the EU-funded EnerGAware research project, in which an innovative serio...

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Published in: Energy and Buildings
ISSN: 0378-7788
Published: Elsevier BV 2020
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URI: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa66786
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Abstract: The application of gamification to encourage energy conservation behaviour in house occupants is an emerging field of research. However, empirical evidence of its effectiveness is lacking. This paper presents lessons learnt from the EU-funded EnerGAware research project, in which an innovative serious game (a game designed for purposes other than purely entertainment) was developed to promote reduced energy consumption and carbon emissions by changing social housing tenants’ energy efficiency behaviour. The game was validated in a sample of European social housing using a longitudinal, two-stage experimental design, employing both pre-post and control group approaches. While some aspects of the game did not work as intended, there were nevertheless some positive impacts. The intervention increased social housing tenants’ awareness and engagement in certain energy saving behaviour and provided an average electricity saving of 3.46% and an average gas saving of 7.48%. Although savings were found not to be statistically significant, an effect size was detected (0.2). Therefore, future steps should exploit all available opportunities to replicate the pilot and increase the sample size so as to gain stronger evidence of the game's impact. Preliminary results support the utility of gaming investment in the household energy efficiency field, and provide useful insights and pathways that could be incorporated into the development of future serious game interventions to foster their effectiveness.
Item Description: Corrigendum availbale at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enbuild.2020.110193
Keywords: Serious game; Gaming; Social housing; Energy efficiency; Energy saving
College: Faculty of Medicine, Health and Life Sciences
Funders: This research was supported by the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme through the EnerGAware project (Energy Game for Awareness of energy efficiency in social housing communities), contract no. 649673.
Start Page: 109753

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