The ENERGISE team has now launched the Living Labs, which will involve approx. 320 households across Europe. This is a very exciting phase of the project and all ENERGISE members are really busy these days with organising Living Labs. The focus of Living Labs will be on households' daily energy use, related to two specific areas: cleanliness (laundry) and thermal comfort (heating) in the home.
In order to reach and involve households participating in the Living Labs, ENERGISE partners used various tools such as advertisements in printed and online media, Facebook ads and personal recruitment.
Recruitment in action: LMU has recruited households at an event
As the first step of Living Labs in August, households were asked to fill in a baseline questionnaire that focused on their initial energy use and everyday habits.
At the beginning of September, each household was visited personally and they received a starter kit involving temperature meters, logging thermometers and energy meters. These meters were placed in each home to collect data during the Living Labs.
Starter kits were delivered to households by electric car in Denmark :)
...and by bike and roller in Hungary :)
Starter kits...
...and their content: thermometers, logging thermometers and energy meters
As part of the preparatory work trainings were organised for research colleagues. E.g. GreenDependent Institute organised a training for its co-workers about Living Labs, surveys and heating and laundry challenges.
Training for GDI co-workers
Focus groups are organised at the beginning of October, and all families will open the 'secret' heating and laundry boxes in the first half of October - guess they are pretty excited about it! :)