Energy behaviour engagement in smart urban environments

In today’s ubiquitously connected society, citizens are continuously exposed to information energy usage- related. information However, users are not interpreting or taking appropriate action to benefit from the opportunities such information embodies. This concern is particularly relevant when time-dependent and especially real-time pricing of electricity is available. A parallel problem resides in businesses not transferring energy pricing variations onto their customers, in a way that shields them from effectively contributing to demand response. Under such a scenario, for businesses to remain competitive, different levels of services could be offered, according to the time of day at which energy consumption takes place. This paper is grounded on the assumption that energy consumers require assistance for making appropriate energy usage choices in the ever-complex evolving energy market, especially in consuming services and products that optimize overall energy use. A tentative architecture for a community-wide collaborative energy optimization platform is presented, aimed at engaging citizens, business owners, and city authorities into exploring alternative efficient behaviour scenarios. This work also reviews and discusses how developments in fields of cloud-based data acquisition, energy management, and ICT-based engagement platforms can be integrated to realize this vision.