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Power Poster – Public Project Description

The Power Poster project combines novel interactive printed and online tools to give feedback to users on real-time electricity use in a simple and engaging manner. It converts this energy data and human emotional data into clear, simple and beautiful designs. The issue of feedback to users of buildings is a persistent challenge. Buildings typically perform significantly below their efficiency design standards in part because users get no feed back in real-time or in a form that engages them and encourages them to want to do better.

Until this issue is effectively addressed, we will as a society, continue to struggle with maximising the energy and resource efficiency of buildings, whether these are new or refurbished. The printed and online tools will result in the development of technologies and techniques that encourage people to care about their building's energy use through emotional rewards. This will be achieved by providing visual feedback loops in real-time, enabling building users to appreciate the impact of their behaviour and present this information in a form that makes users want to adopt energy efficient behaviour.

This user-centred approach is a novel and low-tech solution to a significant challenge for UK industry, government and the environment. The project will develop and refine online and printed products that will be used and assessed in school and office settings.

Novalia has developed a proprietary printed platform technology ideally suited to the needs of this project. The technology enables the creation of interactive posters that have touch sensitive ink linked to a low cost environmentally friendly power supply, sound device and micro-controller. Novalia is developing a low-cost method of manufacturing its technology with partners.

The project will develop an product that uses combines Novalia’s technology with live energy use capture technology to create a platform that enables the visualisation of real-time electricity use at a range of locations and scales (eg school, office and home) and provides users with direct feedback on their energy use in a clear and simple fashion.

The project will combine these technologies & ideas, and create new knowledge about energy & resource saving technologies & behaviours that can be replicated throughout the built environment in both the non-domestic and domestic sectors. BRE, Reading University & the Halcrow research partnership will develop a model that provides energy use feedback in accessible ways. Using the data on electricity & emotional/sensory inputs from building users Power Poster devices, printed or online, will change appearance, so users can see whether they are positive or negative, with immediate and/or trend energy & resource use. This gives an indication of the emotional investment of building users.

Project outputs will be the specification of innovative products that can be commercialised. Power Posters will increase knowledge of how human behaviours may be engaged to save energy & reduce energy costs/carbon emissions of non-domestic buildings.

Novalia will create an interactive printed platform to increase user awareness and encourage energy efficient use through modified behaviours. The products will create site-specific visualisation tools, which display energy use data in visual, non-technical forms that do not rely on words and numbers to communicate effectively. BRE, Reading University and Halcrow will apply the ideas into a number of live case studies in a variety of sectors, including a retrofit to Halcrow’s new Head Office.

The simplicity, dynamism and fun elements of the Power Poster product are fundamental to the project. From the existing knowledge of the partners and subsequent online research, the printed, online and consultancy products we envisage will differ from anything currently available globally.

A significant number of the population have difficulties with literacy and numeracy so it is likely that technical terms and units in real-time feedback systems will not be effective. This is perhaps re-enforced by the relatively slow take up of smart meters. These factors suggest the potential for a very large market for Power Poster's visualisations, which distill and simplify complex real-time energy information into playful, dynamic and engaging graphics.