Workshop: Data Driven Energy Services. How to Engage Consumers?

On 21 of January 2020, our partners, IOTA, presented their solutions and references +CityxChange in the workshop organised by the European Commission, namely DG CNECT and DG ENER,  on Data Driven Energy Services – how to engage consumers. The aim of the workshop was to explore what is happening at household level in the field of energy services. More specifically, the workshop aimed at showcasing the experiences of H2020 projects and their approach to the GDPR requirements; understanding how to engage consumers in the new energy solutions, hearing the views of the Energy Communities on the possibilities opened by the Clean Energy Package, and the role played by IT companies compared to the energy companies in providing these services. 

With 120 people attending and a fully booked room, the event gathered an audience consisting of representatives of DSOs, Energy communities, consumers associations, EU funded projects trialling consumers engagement in energy services as well as commercial platforms providing digitalised energy services. In three sessions, experiences gained by these actors were discussed, identifying challenges and opportunities concerning consumers’ engagement in data driven energy services.
The workshop confirmed important trends such as digitalisation changing the way energy market players are interacting with consumers. In this context, novel business models should be developed to engage customers in the wide energy market promoting a consumer-oriented framework that provide monetary rewards (without excluding non-monetary such as green behavior) for value provided to the system, and help build an online community of like-minded actors in order to increase the use of renewable resources in the energy mix.

Despite all the efforts, it was recognised that for the time being we are not managing to engage consumers in a big enough scale and beyond the initial phase of interest. What was common to those who have succeeded at engaging consumers (be it R&I projects or commercially viable start-ups) was the fact of thinking, from the beginning, what does the consumer want. In this context, should we reformulate the question “which kind of data do we need?” to “which kind of data can we collect according to the GDPR”? In the context of the energy transition, the new role of a DSO as a system integrator was emphasized. In addition, a second level of the energy transition was strongly highlighted: the construction of a data layer or framework covering the handling, processing and governance of all energy-related data.Participants requested future programmes of the European Commission to support data platforms and recognized the need to support a cross-sector approach, especially mobility, energy and urban environments to reach the Green Deal objectives.

The European Commission has taken note of these messages. They will be considered as input in the preparation of the coming Horizon Europe calls, and they will feed in relevant policy discussions on both Green Deal and Europe Fit for the Digital Age.
Finally, linked to this workshop and within the series of Open Energy Marketplaces and services events that took place during the last year and a half AIOTI, ENTSO-E and EIT InnoEnergy are preparing a POV that addresses topics raised and discussed during the workshops such as the following:

  • What are the gaps, scale-up needs and the state of the play of the enabling technologies
  • What is an open energy market place and how regulation could support the development of such a concept into reality?

 

Download the report for a detailed account of the event. 

Download the presentation from IOTA to learn more on their solutions and +CityxChange. 

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