Technology and financial support are not enough to significantly improve the energy efficiency of residential buildings, Riga Technical University (RTU) scientists conclude. To achieve ambitious climate goals, structural changes in the energy sector are needed, including a shift in the role of citizens to become active participants in the transition to a low-carbon society. RTU researchers have therefore developed modelling tools for energy communities to bridge the carbon neutrality gap in buildings.
«Innovative technological solutions cannot be implemented without analysing people's behaviour and the reasons why they don't use them. The same applies to funding - availability alone does not guarantee uptake. To ensure the uptake of energy efficiency technologies, people's motivations and decision-making structures need to be analysed based on traditions, values, habits, attitudes and beliefs. The role of people also needs to change - they are not just passive subjects of energy policy, but active participants in the sector - and policy makers need to perceive them as such,» says Andra Blumberga, Tenure Professor at the Environmental Protection and Heat Systems Institute (VASSI), Faculty of Natural Sciences and Technology, RTU.
Citizens become active players in the sector by setting up energy communities (energy quartals) and cooperating in renewable energy production and distribution. The Latvian Science Council project «Bridge to carbon neutrality in energy communities: social sciences and humanities meet energy research» (Bridge, project no. lzp-2020/1-0256) developed a single-player and multi-player game, as well as a policy simulation tool. The game will help participants to negotiate trade-offs between renewable energy systems and energy efficiency measures, show how to maximise renewable energy production and reduce energy consumption.
The games and the policy tool are freely available.
The single-player game asks participants to make energy saving, production and use choices to achieve self-defined goals in their building, e.g. participants can choose whether to insulate only the external walls of the house or the roof, the basement, change windows, which insulation materials to choose and how thick to put them. They can decide whether and where to put solar panels on the building and how many, whether to use a heat pump, whether to choose electric cars, whether to use them as an energy storage technology to balance fluctuations in electricity production and consumption, etc. The game allows to assess the economic impact and value for money of the choices, balancing the investment with the potential for a return on investment.
The multiplayer game simulates an energy community by creating a virtual neighbourhood identical to the real one. Community members (e.g. elders of houses in the neighbourhood) first set a goal, e.g. to save resources, become greener, etc., then make their choices. The game shows both the consequences and benefits of each player's actions, the costs, the expected savings and the impact on the community. In subsequent rounds, the players agree on the next steps to reach a compromise, with environmental, economic and social benefits for all. To facilitate decision-making, the starting point of the game is the optimal solution for a given energy community.
The simulation tool will help policy makers to make data-driven decisions on effective support mechanisms and levels for different communities, to target the use of money and to implement effective consumer-engagement actions. The tool helps to model energy communities and compare how potential policy measures - tax policy changes, changes in net purchase conditions, etc. - will affect different communities.
