Towards Self Energy-Management and Sustainable Citizens' Engagement in Local Energy Efficiency Agenda

Abstract

EU 2020 targets and global challenges concerning energy efficiency in public and private sectors generated a great number of local and sectorial approaches mainly oriented to investment promotion in energy technologies including buildings renovations. RES diffusion also generated impacts on rural and natural areas, but a comprehensive balance of recent trends still remarks only a partial success. The research hypothesis regards short-term benefits that an inclusive approach in energy management could bring in connection with energy efficiency investments at municipal scale. In fact a lot of energy wastage is linked to ineffective usage model, even in renewed buildings too. If one includes community involvement process oriented to deliver sustainable energy behaviors, one can expect a general improvement of energy saving in public and private sector. In order to be included, citizens need information: the Real time ICT application for energy monitoring represents an advancement proposed in this research. The long term perspective fits with the attitude of informed citizen to deliver self-energy management practice in everyday life. The benefits of the proposed approach regard territorial policies in the framework of EU-2020 strategy, Covenant of Mayors and UN 2030-Agenda.