Exploring data and establishing routines for collaboration on energy experiments
Participants: Mike Farjam (FSV), Krushna Mahapatra (FTK), Giangiacomo Bravo (FSV)
Problem definition and value
Much effort has been done in the last decades in Sweden to decrease the consumption of energy and other resources in buildings. Among the country’s best examples is the city of V¨axj¨o, which has had an ambitious programme of sustainable infrastructure development. The downside of this impressive achievement is that the limits of what can be done using a top-down technical approach has almost been reached. Further significant improvements will require a greater involvement of citizens, including changes in their day-to-day routines and behaviour.
This situation led us to formulate two project applications in the last months, submitted to Energi- myndigheten and Formas respectively, where we proposed to run field experiments on residents in V¨axj¨obostader buildings with the goal to better understand the factors that could “nudge” them to re- duce their use of energy and hot/cold water. In the process of writing these applications, we experienced significant difficulties in the collaboration with external organizations such as VEAB and V¨axj¨obostader, despite a strong willingness to cooperate on the municipality side and the fact that the university (repre- sented by Krushna Mahapatra, who participates in this proposal as well) was already involved together with these actors in the closely connected and EU-funded READY project (see http://www.smartcity- ready.eu/about-vaxjo-in-the-ready-project/).
Despite the successful submission of the two applications, it should be recognised that they resulted weaker than what could have been possible through better collaboration among the interested actors. For instance, support letters from the municipality were enclosed but not the ones for other relevant actors, such as V¨axj¨obostader and VEAB. The lack of any possibility of examining ahead of writing some preliminary data on the Docenten residence led to a somewhat vaguer definition of the methodological part of the two applications as well, which may penalise them in the course of the review process.
Although we still hope that our projects will be approved, a clear need of better collaboration routines and possibly of enhanced mutual trust emerged during the process. Both factors will be crucial both to start the project, in case of successful funding, and to present stronger applications in the future, in case of failure. In addition, we clearly felt the difficulty on the V¨axj¨obostader and VEAB side to understand our objectives and methods, which highlights a need for us to present better and more practical examples of what we can do in order to capture the interest of our potential partners.
Objectives & expected results
The main objective of this project is to create better routines of collaboration with VEAB and V¨axj¨obost¨ader.
These will mainly focus on:
• the provision and analysis of energy and water consumption data;
• the possibility to measure and collect further data, such waste production ones, use of the shared cleaning facilities, etc.;
• the tools that can be used to communicate the experimental stimuli to the residents in Docenten and other buildings, such as the ITC interface developed within the READY project.
To achieve these goals, to involve more closely the potential partners and to increase their interest represent crucial steps. We believe they can be achieved by better presenting our methods, their ad- vantages, and the feasibility of what we propose. Realising a few simple pilot experiments, along with presenting some examples based on the analysis of the preliminary data recently provided by Magnus Persson (VEAB) could help us in this task. More specifically, it will allow to present clear examples of what can be done by the research group and possibly to better identify the right people to speak within
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each organization (for instance to better understand the structure and limits of the existing data). The plan hence is to use the outcomes of this small project for presentations within meetings/small work- shops with representatives from all the potentially interested organizations, namely V¨axj¨o Kommun, VEAB, V¨axj¨obost¨ader, and eventually RI.SE. These meetings will be realised during the autumn-early winter 2019 as part of the project itself (see the time plan below).
Besides the usual report for seed projects, a deliverable will be produced either as a notice about the start of the currently submitted project(s), if approved, or as the text of the new application(s) resulting from the seed project.
Activities & time plan
1. (Spring 2019) Improved understanding and analysis of the preliminary data recently provided by VEAB and referring to the hot/cold water consumption of a subset of the Docenten residents who already agreed to make them available for research.
2. (Spring–Late summer 2019) Running of 1–2 pilot experiments, possibly online or within the Docen- tenresidence, in the former case using a clear framing on resource savings in buildings.
3. (Late summer–Autumn 2019) Extension of the number of Docenten residents who signed the agree- ment for data sharing with the university (including the ones that will enter after the summer break).
4. (Late summer–Autumn 2019) Collection and more advanced analysis of further data on consumption in Docenten, including the electricity consumption data currently not shared by VEAB.
5. (Autumn–Early winter 2019) Organization of 2–4 meetings with representatives of the interested organizations to present the preliminary results and rise their interest for our research activities.
Krushna Mahapatra — who is not part of DISA and would have no possibility to collaborate in absence of some dedicated time — will have 80h of his time funded by the project, while Mike Farjam and Giangiacomo Bravo will use the time already allocated by the FSV for their DISA activities. KM’s time will be mainly used to manage the contacts with the potential partners, to help the organization of the meetings, and to discuss the design of the experiments. As the relation with the potential partner is crucial for the success of the project, having time explicitly dedicated to this task is especially important, and KM has already interacted with several of them in past projects and other activities. The project will finally benefit from the work of two master students doing their thesis on a closely related subject.
Budget
Description Amount Details
(SEK) Running of pilot ex-
periments
30,000 Payment of participants and of the external-world effects even- tually included in the experimental protocol, e.g., the buying of carbon offset credits as in [1] (∼15,000 SEK/experiment).
Research time for Krushna Mahapatra
59,900 80 hours (∼5% of salary, including LKP)
Workshops/meetings 8,000 Organization of 2–4 meetingswith VEAB, V¨axj¨obost¨ader, V¨axj¨o Kommun and other potential partners (e.g., RI.SE). The cost will cover room rental, coffee breaks, and eventually lunches (∼2,000 SEK/meeting).
Total applied for 97,900
References
[1] Mike Farjam, Olexandr Nikolaychuk, and Giangiacomo Bravo. Does risk communication really decrease cooperation in climate change mitigation? Climatic Change, 149(2):147–158, 2018.
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