Serious Game Design for Inclusivity and Empowerment in SmartGrids

Demand-side management of electricity generation and supply requires increased attention to be paid to user engagement and active participation. However, the use of Smart Meters as a centrally-imposed and controlled technology monitoring someone else’s behaviour, raising concerns about trust and privacy, is not, we believe, providing support for both inclusivity and empowerment which are prerequisites for user engagement and active participation. Therefore, instead of demand-side management, we believe that the emphasis should be put on demand-side self-organisation. To support this self-organisation, the user-infrastructure (i.e. grid) interface should observe certain design principles, including support for self-governance, multiple user roles and collective awareness. We propose the use of Serious Games to observe these principles and, at the same time, secure active participation of users, which maximises the capability of both individual consumers or groups of prosumers to make choices (inclusivity), and to convert those choices into collective action and desirable outcomes (empowerment).