Tutorial Serious Game for Demonstrating Demand Response in an Energy Community

Abstract

Energy communities have raised public interest as the world moves toward carbon neutrality. However, many laypeople find the concepts of electricity and energy difficult to grasp. Serious games are games that are designed both to entertain and educate, and they can be used to teach various things, energy among them. This paper describes the design of a prototype serious game where energy communities are tutored for the player. The developed game presents demand response as a game element in a simulated energy community with a shared photovoltaic installation, which suggests that serious gaming can be used to teach people about how energy communities work. When designing a serious game, multiple different gameplay and player engagement elements and intrinsic design should be considered so that different kinds of players can learn best through the game.