Rule 1: Don't say kilowatts...

Ok i'll be to the first to admit it - getting your head around power and energy units can be a little confusing! Many of the experts we talked to while developing our energy game agreed that using "comprehensible units" (like Euros "worth" of electricity saved) was the best way to get information across.

That's all well and good, but what if we couldn't generalise about money saved because the cost varies by supplier? In our a recent pilot with ESB Networks our focus was on awareness of peak time ("Beat the Peak"), the relationship between weather and the availability of renewables, and household energy literacy (what activities use more or less electrical energy). We needed to communicate relative energy use of activities while following rule 1: "Don't say kilowatts!".

Our solution? The electricity orb!

We needed a relative unit to communicate which household activities uses more or less energy so we invented one and mapped it (approximately) to average appliance energy usage (for the average duration) according industry research.

So in the game all you need to know is that a microwave uses 1 electricity orb, an air-fryer uses 3 and an oven uses 5. We found that these numbers and the relative amounts stuck in players heads to the point that they were quoting them back to us with precision.

Why did people remember so well? It's likely because the number was given meaning within the game experience. During off-peak times the number of electricity orbs used to power an activity translated to points in the game.. and during peak times it translated to negative points!

The idea is that after the many game "loops" that an average player plays through, an intuition begins to develop for understanding roughly how much electrical energy common household activities use and that it's a good idea to minimise energy use during peak time if possible.

Tune in next time for the next game "rule": give feedback, immediately!