Secure, clean and efficient Energy - STEP BY STEP

H2020-EE

STEP BY STEP aims at reducing the energy consumption of households and encouraging households to invest in energy efficient products and/or high quality renewable energy products. This is done by provoking behavioral change through intensive accompaniment of participating households. The project will run from March 2015 until August 2017.

STEP BY STEPThe project wants to contribute to achieving the EU 20-20-20 targets energy efficiency improvement target by reducing the energy consumption of households and encouraging households to make green energy investments. This will be done by launching energy saving interventions amongst 9.000 households in 4 European areas . These interventions will be based on a behavioral strategy and a web-based system for behavioral change will be deployed. The households are regularly encouraged to try and commit to new actions to reduce energy consumption. Community-based social marketing strategies will be used to encourage energy-related investment decisions.

Existing energy saving campaigns provide households with a general awareness but do not provoke large scale behavior changes. Communication strategies involving direct contact are typically more effective on behavioural change than mass media campaigns. Thus, a system will be put into place to make individual door-to-door contact with households. The targeted households will be solicited regularly through email or by phone and will be accompanied over a 20 month period towards the adoption of energy-saving practices.

Objectives

The overall goal of STEP BY STEP is to maximize the percentage of households of a homogeneous area (a neighbourhood or small city) that adopt energy saving behaviour at home and decide to purchase energy-efficient products and/or high quality renewable energy products.

This goal can be translated into 5 objectives:

  • Improving households’ knowledge about energy saving behaviour and energy-efficient products.
  • Motivating households to commit to energy saving actions.
  • Encouraging community-based interactions between households likely to invest in high quality renewable energy products.
  • Better understanding behaviour patterns related to energy savings in different target groups.
  • Conducting dissemination actions to promote the Step by Step concept and its implementation by European local authorities.

 

Role of Ghent University

Power-Link Ghent University is the communication and dissemination manager of the project.

 

Contact

Prof. Lieven Vandevelde
Power-Link (the energy knowledge platform of Ghent University)
Phone number: +32 59 24 27 40
E-mail: