Smart energy users: ICT instruments for the consumer awareness

The European Commission is supporting many projects in the field of energy saving, with the aim to improve user behavior and to help Europe to meet emission targets. In October 2012, the European Union adopted the Energy Efficiency Directive with the aim to reduce the primary energy consumption by 20% by 2020. One key point in the reduction of energy consumption energy is the awareness of final users about their usage of energy. At the same time, policies aimed at improving the efficiency of energy use, are a keystone in the strategies of leading Distribution System Operators (DSOs) and energy retail companies that started to offer, in addition to the energy supply, services and suggestions concerning the energy management in the daily family life. The first step toward a better use of energy is the awareness and the monitoring of the consumption. Since not all the final users have a professional education concerning energy, the figure of energy consumption are not enough to transfer the information. In order to support the final users to improve their energy behavior, additional information, comments, comparison (with similar users and with past consumption) have to be supplied with proper channel. The smart meters at the final users must be able to communicate with the users themselves or have to be connected to a storage and computation unit, in order to give a feedback, useful to evaluate and improved the final users' behaviors. In the paper are illustrated the activities carried out in the frame of the Empowering project the methods adopted for the evaluation of energy savings along with the ICT tools adopted in the Torino (Italy) pilot site.