FEEdBACk – the European project that promoted energy efficiency in buildings came to an end

After close to three and a half years, the European project FEEdBACk – Fostering Energy Efficiency and Behavioral Change through ICT – came to a close, with the launch of the ECOplay app. This European project, led by INESC TEC, focused on the development of technologies that promote the consumers’ efficient use of energy.

More specifically, the project led to the development of applications based on gamification techniques, and the testing of behavioural change techniques to engage users from different buildings (offices, houses, and public entities). These initiatives allowed consumers to understand and change their behaviour in terms of energy consumption.

INESC TEC researchers were responsible for coordinating all the activities developed throughout the project, and for the development of a set of technologies. One of them – a multi-sensor capable of conveying temperature, CO2, brightness, and humidity measurements via wireless.

Multi-sensor developed during the project

Technological advances that contributed to the project’s success

The project comprehended the development and demonstration of several technologies in different environments, namely through three demonstrators installed in Porto (Portugal), Barcelona (Spain) and Lippe (Germany). In Portugal, the tests took place at INESC TEC’s headquarters; in Barcelona, the tests were held at 10 public buildings in the Municipality of El Prat, including libraries, schools, and sports centres. In Lippe, the tests were carried out in 25 houses.

INESC TEC, represented by two of its 13 research centres – Centre for Power and Energy Systems (CPES) and Centre for Information Systems and Computer Graphics (CSIG) -, was the technical coordinator of the FEEdBACk project. INESC TEC was responsible for the development of four technologies:

– Gamification platform with a mobile application as front-end: this platform, developed by INESC TEC and Limetools, aimed to encourage more efficient behaviours in terms of energy consumption, through the communication of metrics, competitions and e-learning tools included in the ECOplay mobile application. INESC TEC was responsible for developing the entire mobile application, the respective gamification techniques and the associated databases;

– Multi-sensor unit capable of reading temperature, humidity, brightness, and CO2 levels: This technology is used to communicate (via wireless) indoor air comfort and quality indicators in real time, and is also capable of storing said data in a database, so it can be used later in terms of consumption disaggregation, baseline forecast, consumption/generation forecast and users’ occupation and behaviour forecast;

– Prediction algorithms designed to create baselines and predict energy consumption/generation in different types of buildings: The aforementioned technologies resort to machine learning, past measurements and weather forecasts to predict how much electricity will be consumed and produced during the following day;

– Algorithms to predict the occupation of buildings and the behaviour of users with regard to energy consumption: Similarly to the previous tools, these technologies – developed by INESC TEC and EPFL – also use machine learning techniques. Considering data related to occupation forecasts, it is possible to predict whether a room or building will be occupied over a certain period. As to predicting user behaviour, the data allows forecasting whether a given time shows the potential to induce energy savings.

The innovative nature of the project and the impact of the results on society

The project also comprehended novel fundamental innovations in this field of technology. One of the most important, among all those mentioned above, was the integration of applications that use machine learning to produce results that favour the efficient management of buildings, without compromising comfort. Moreover, one could say that the major breakthroughs did not take place at the applications’ methodological level, but rather in terms of using data produced by sensors, electricity meters, weather forecasts, among others, to make applications ‘communicate with each other’.

Among said applications, one can highlight the Net Load Forecast, which allows consumption and production forecasting; the Behaviour Predictor, useful to predict the right periods to alert consumers towards the reduction of unnecessary consumption; the Automation Manager, a tool that generates operating profiles for central HVAC systems; the Occupancy Forecast, which forecasts the occupation of rooms or buildings, and the Load Disaggregation, able to forecast disaggregation consumption to which there’s only one measurement. The performance of this platform has been successfully demonstrated.

“The results achieved in the FEEdBACk project allow us to conclude that, in an era where everything is digital, drawing users’ attention to mobile applications is quite complicated”, explained Filipe Joel Soares, coordinator of this project at INESC TEC.

However, the results also showed that, once we’re able to break the initial barrier of capturing the users’ attention, it became possible to raise their awareness of energy consumption, and influence them to become more efficient, at home or at work, thus contributing to a more responsible use of energy.

In terms of scientific production, the project researchers published 10 articles – four in journals and six in conferences.

In order to achieve these results, INESC TEC relied on 18 researchers over almost three and a half years: André Filipe Garcia, André Guimarães Madureira, António Coelho, António Coelho (CSIG), António Cunha Barbosa, Bárbara Pinho, Eunice Isabel Oliveira, Fernando Cassola (CSIG), Fernando José Ribeiro, Filipe Joel Soares, Joana Desport Coelho, João Paulo Viana, José Ricardo Andrade, Luís Miguel Miranda, Luís Miguel Miranda, Nilufar Neyestani, Patrícia Vale and Ricardo Jorge Bessa.

FEEdBACk had a total budget of around €2.3M. In addition to INESC TEC, other eight institutions from seven countries participated in the project: Technische Universiteit Delft (Netherlands), Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (Switzerland), DEXMA Sensors SL (Spain), Limetools LTD (United Kingdom), IN-JET APS (Denmark), Kreis Lippe der Landrat (Germany) and Estudi Ramon Folch i Associates SL (Spain).

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 768935.

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The INESC TEC researchers mentioned in this news piece are associated with UP-FEUP.