IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v12y2020i17p6699-d400815.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Life Cycle Analysis of a Game-Based Solution for Domestic Energy Saving

Author

Listed:
  • Marta Gangolells

    (Group of Construction Research and Innovation (GRIC), Department of Project and Construction Engineering, Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya, 08222 Terrassa (Barcelona), Spain)

  • Miquel Casals

    (Group of Construction Research and Innovation (GRIC), Department of Project and Construction Engineering, Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya, 08222 Terrassa (Barcelona), Spain)

  • Núria Forcada

    (Group of Construction Research and Innovation (GRIC), Department of Project and Construction Engineering, Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya, 08222 Terrassa (Barcelona), Spain)

  • Marcel Macarulla

    (Group of Construction Research and Innovation (GRIC), Department of Project and Construction Engineering, Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya, 08222 Terrassa (Barcelona), Spain)

Abstract

ICT-based solutions are seen to be almost totally environmentally friendly, but game-based solutions for energy saving have not been explored yet. This paper describes a comprehensive analysis and an in-depth interpretation of the life cycle environmental impact of a game-based solution for domestic energy saving, developed and validated within the EU-funded Horizon 2020 project EnerGAware—Energy Game for Awareness of energy efficiency in social housing communities. Life cycle impacts were calculated with SimaPRO 8.5.2.0 using the ReCiPe 2016 v1.02 midpoint and endpoint methods and information contained within the Ecoinvent v3.4 database. Although the pre-competitive solution, directly arising from the research project, was found to have a relatively high environmental impact, its future exploitation, which mostly relies on existing infrastructure, was found to be highly competitive from an environmental perspective. The game will help reduce the life cycle impact of domestic energy consumption on damage to human health (3.68%), ecosystem quality (3.87%), and resource availability (4.81%). Most of the environmental impact of the market solution was found in the manufacturing phase (77.96–80.12%). Transport (8.86–7.57%), use (3.86–5.82%), and maintenance (7.24–7.54%) phases were found to contribute little to environmental impact. This research provides a useful reference for decision-making as it contributes to the environmental benchmarking of competing energy-saving strategies.

Suggested Citation

  • Marta Gangolells & Miquel Casals & Núria Forcada & Marcel Macarulla, 2020. "Life Cycle Analysis of a Game-Based Solution for Domestic Energy Saving," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(17), pages 1-18, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:17:p:6699-:d:400815
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/17/6699/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/17/6699/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Christine Boomsma & Rebecca Hafner & Sabine Pahl & Rory V. Jones & Alba Fuertes, 2018. "Should We Play Games Where Energy Is Concerned? Perceptions of Serious Gaming as a Technology to Motivate Energy Behaviour Change among Social Housing Residents," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(6), pages 1-18, May.
    2. Severin Beucker & Joseph D. Bergesen & Thomas Gibon, 2016. "Building Energy Management Systems: Global Potentials and Environmental Implications of Deployment," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 20(2), pages 223-233, April.
    3. Gangolells, Marta & Casals, Miquel & Forcada, Núria & Macarulla, Marcel & Giretti, Alberto, 2015. "Environmental impacts related to the commissioning and usage phase of an intelligent energy management system," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 138(C), pages 216-223.
    4. Gangolells, Marta & Casals, Miquel & Forcada, Núria & Macarulla, Marcel & Giretti, Alberto, 2016. "Energy performance assessment of an intelligent energy management system," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 662-667.
    5. Tania Ouariachi & Wim J. L. Elving & Frank Pierie, 2018. "Playing for a Sustainable Future: The Case of We Energy Game as an Educational Practice," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(10), pages 1-12, October.
    6. Delzendeh, Elham & Wu, Song & Lee, Angela & Zhou, Ying, 2017. "The impact of occupants’ behaviours on building energy analysis: A research review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 1061-1071.
    7. Johnson, Daniel & Horton, Ella & Mulcahy, Rory & Foth, Marcus, 2017. "Gamification and serious games within the domain of domestic energy consumption: A systematic review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 249-264.
    8. van Dam, S.S. & Bakker, C.A. & Buiter, J.C., 2013. "Do home energy management systems make sense? Assessing their overall lifecycle impact," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 398-407.
    9. Ornaghi, Carmine & Costanza, Enrico & Kittley-Davies, Jacob & Bourikas, Leonidas & Aragon, Victoria & James, Patrick A.B., 2018. "The effect of behavioural interventions on energy conservation in naturally ventilated offices," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 582-591.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Tahir Emre Kalaycı & Bor Bricelj & Marko Lah & Franz Pichler & Matthias K. Scharrer & Jelena Rubeša-Zrim, 2021. "A Knowledge Graph-Based Data Integration Framework Applied to Battery Data Management," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(3), pages 1-17, February.
    2. Manh-Toan Ho & Thanh-Huyen T. Nguyen & Minh-Hoang Nguyen & Viet-Phuong La & Quan-Hoang Vuong, 2022. "Virtual tree, real impact: how simulated worlds associate with the perception of limited resources," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 9(1), pages 1-12, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Marta Gangolells & Miquel Casals & Marcel Macarulla & Núria Forcada, 2021. "Exploring the Potential of a Gamified Approach to Reduce Energy Use and Carbon Emissions in the Household Sector," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(6), pages 1-18, March.
    2. Hossein Nasrollahi & Ioannis Lampropoulos & Stefan Werning & Anton Belinskiy & Jan Dirk Fijnheer & Remco C. Veltkamp & Wilfried van Sark, 2023. "Review of Serious Energy Games: Objectives, Approaches, Applications, Data Integration, and Performance Assessment," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(19), pages 1-42, October.
    3. Mathias Lanezki & Catharina Siemer & Steffen Wehkamp, 2020. "“Changing the Game—Neighbourhood”: An Energy Transition Board Game, Developed in a Co-Design Process: A Case Study," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(24), pages 1-18, December.
    4. Casals, Miquel & Gangolells, Marta & Forcada, Núria & Macarulla, Marcel & Giretti, Alberto & Vaccarini, Massimo, 2016. "SEAM4US: An intelligent energy management system for underground stations," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 166(C), pages 150-164.
    5. Yu, Yanzhe & You, Shijun & Zhang, Huan & Ye, Tianzhen & Wang, Yaran & Wei, Shen, 2021. "A review on available energy saving strategies for heating, ventilation and air conditioning in underground metro stations," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 141(C).
    6. Chatzigeorgiou, I.M. & Andreou, G.T., 2021. "A systematic review on feedback research for residential energy behavior change through mobile and web interfaces," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 135(C).
    7. Rebecca Afua Klege & Martine Visser & Saugato Datta & Matthew Darling, 2022. "The Power of Nudging: Using Feedback, Competition, and Responsibility Assignment to Save Electricity in a Non-residential Setting," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 81(3), pages 573-589, March.
    8. Xiaohua Song & Yun Long & Zhongfu Tan & Xubei Zhang & Leming Li, 2016. "The Optimization of Distributed Photovoltaic Comprehensive Efficiency Based on the Construction of Regional Integrated Energy Management System in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 8(11), pages 1-19, November.
    9. Elma, Onur & Selamogullari, Ugur Savas, 2015. "A new home energy management algorithm with voltage control in a smart home environment," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 720-731.
    10. Anna Mutule & Marcos Domingues & Fernando Ulloa-Vásquez & Dante Carrizo & Luis García-Santander & Ana-Maria Dumitrescu & Diego Issicaba & Lucas Melo, 2021. "Implementing Smart City Technologies to Inspire Change in Consumer Energy Behaviour," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(14), pages 1-15, July.
    11. Papineau, Maya & Yassin, Kareman & Newsham, Guy & Brice, Sarah, 2021. "Conditional demand analysis as a tool to evaluate energy policy options on the path to grid decarbonization," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 149(C).
    12. Kiguchi, Y. & Weeks, M. & Arakawa, R., 2021. "Predicting winners and losers under time-of-use tariffs using smart meter data," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 236(C).
    13. Shen, Meng & Li, Xiang & Lu, Yujie & Cui, Qingbin & Wei, Yi-Ming, 2021. "Personality-based normative feedback intervention for energy conservation," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(C).
    14. Lu, Zhiming & Gao, Yan & Xu, Chuanbo, 2021. "Evaluation of energy management system for regional integrated energy system under interval type-2 hesitant fuzzy environment," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 222(C).
    15. Shu Su & Xiaodong Li & Borong Lin & Hongyang Li & Jingfeng Yuan, 2019. "A Comparison of the Environmental Performance of Cooling and Heating among Different Household Types in China’s Hot Summer–Cold Winter Zone," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(20), pages 1-17, October.
    16. Koasidis, Konstantinos & Marinakis, Vangelis & Nikas, Alexandros & Chira, Katerina & Flamos, Alexandros & Doukas, Haris, 2022. "Monetising behavioural change as a policy measure to support energy management in the residential sector: A case study in Greece," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 161(C).
    17. Zhou, Bin & Li, Wentao & Chan, Ka Wing & Cao, Yijia & Kuang, Yonghong & Liu, Xi & Wang, Xiong, 2016. "Smart home energy management systems: Concept, configurations, and scheduling strategies," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 30-40.
    18. Antonio Paone & Jean-Philippe Bacher, 2018. "The Impact of Building Occupant Behavior on Energy Efficiency and Methods to Influence It: A Review of the State of the Art," Energies, MDPI, vol. 11(4), pages 1-19, April.
    19. Nam, KiJeon & Heo, SungKu & Li, Qian & Loy-Benitez, Jorge & Kim, MinJeong & Park, DuckShin & Yoo, ChangKyoo, 2020. "A proactive energy-efficient optimal ventilation system using artificial intelligent techniques under outdoor air quality conditions," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 266(C).
    20. Perroni, Marcos G. & Gouvea da Costa, Sergio E. & Pinheiro de Lima, Edson & Vieira da Silva, Wesley & Tortato, Ubiratã, 2018. "Measuring energy performance: A process based approach," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 222(C), pages 540-553.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:17:p:6699-:d:400815. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.