Carla Colin

The Energy Transition Board Game

Climate change has dominated the concerns regarding dependency on fossil fuels to produce energy. But at the current times, that dependency is also jeopardizing energy security in the Eurozone. The energy transition to clean energies is urged in order to tackle these concerns. Some of the strategies include the deployment of domestic technologies to produce clean energy. In Ireland, the perpetual accommodation crisis inspires the direction of this work which intends to understand how people who do not own a house can access clean energy technologies to become prosumers.

To understand the concepts needed to develop this project, the literature reviewed was about energy production, the energy transition acceleration, the housing situation in Ireland, and the design tools that can help the energy transition. Based on an analysis of blog posts, this research proposes three different levels of energy citizenship according to the students' energy consumption or the use of technology to produce energy. Also, interviews with experienced prosumers were held, and concluded in a proposal of a prosumer taxonomy. With the gathered information, the reliability of spreading knowledge related to this subject in order to persuade the final user to become a prosumer. The interaction proposal is a Board Game.

The Energy Transition Board Game approaches basic energy citizens with concepts considered necessary to understand the energy transition. The players start at the centre of the board, living in rented accommodation and depending on the central energy grid. To decentralize the grid, they will try to get to the furthermost points to move from energy consumers to energy prosumers. When a blackout card comes out, the game is over, and all players will see where they are at towards the energy transition.