Review of Demand Response and Energy Communities in Serious Games

Shared energy resources and energy communities are being widely studied and pilots are being implemented in various locations around the world. However, laypeople may find the concepts regarding energy and electricity in general difficult to grasp, and the issue is made more complex by introducing new aspects like demand response and shared photovoltaic (PV) installations. Serious games are proposed as a tool for raising awareness, and this paper presents a systematic literature review on serious games featuring energy and electricity aspects while giving extra attention to whether a serious game has features considering demand response or energy communities. The results are used to determine whether research gaps exist, and if a serious game featuring energy communities and demand response would be meaningful to develop. In total, 34 games were identified, four of which had demand response aspects and five of which had aspects considering energy communities or shared energy resources. None of the games featured both aspects while having a link to real-life events by, e.g., making the energy consumption of the player’s home affect the outcome of the game. This emphasizes the fact that the concepts are new, and a serious game covering them could be implemented.