Poster Abstract: The Impact of User Engagement in the Effectiveness of Energy Saving Programs

Significant energy wasted in private homes each year. Most of the times, the residents do not know the cause of energy waste in their homes. We designed several activities to encourage the homeowners to learn about how energy is used at their homes and start thinking about eliminating those waste. The program consists of twelve weekly activities in which the homeowners participate. We analyzed monthly electricity bills for all the program's participants and found that energy savings achieved by the participants has close relationship to level of their engagement in the program. People who were highly involved in program saved much more energy (5%) compared to participants who were involved in less than 25% of activities.