Sustainable transition An interplay among people, technology and sustainability

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Technology alone does not create sustainability

People and technology need to work togetherWe develop innovative and sustainable solu-tions founded on insights into the interplay among people, technology and sustainability.

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Business development in the energy area based on insights into user behaviour

The roll-out of Smart Grid in Denmark requires Danes to change their behaviour.

But in order to change people’s behaviour, you need to understand it first. Otherwise you risk developing initia-tives and products that Danes will not bother to use, and a failed project can have large economic consequences.

If you consciously work on developing products and initia-tives based on available knowledge about user behaviour, you will have good opportunities of making measures that reduce the energy consumption of citizens and businesses.

The Alexandra Institute helps the energy sector to include knowledge about user behaviour in their business.

At the Alexandra Institute, we participate in research pro-jects to build up the latest knowledge about how people consume energy and how to influence their behaviour.

We use various anthropological and quantitative methods to achieve this knowledge, and we work together with e.g. engineers, computer scientists and architects to translate our knowledge into solutions aimed at private end users.

We have the opportunity to make our knowledge avail-able to public and private businesses in both Denmark and abroad.

One of Denmark’s leading experts on user behaviour in the energy area is energy anthropologist Johanne Mose En-twistle, who works at the Alexandra Institute. Johanne is an expert in user studies, user involvement and effective-ness evaluations in the energy area.

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ENERGY AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT // USER BEHAVIOUR AND INNOVATION

Sustainable behaviour and architecture Pluskontoret Architects and MOE lacked knowledge of user behaviour when they were to make an offer for developing ‘The Quota House’ for Realdania Byg. Therefore they chose to partner with the Alexandra Institute - and won the assignment. Based on our knowledge about user behaviour in the home, ‘The Quota House’ is to help the occupants to a more sustainable behaviour through its architecture, technology and quota concept.

Do your washing when it’s cheapest Develco Products wanted to develop solutions that support flexible energy consumption. Therefore, they part-nered with the Alexandra Institute to gain insight into user behaviour and user needs. They wanted answers to what consumers can and will do at different times. And how their products could usefully be made so that consum-ers could and would use them. We also assisted Develco in converting this new knowledge into a new product: ’The Intelligent Washer’. The Intelligent Washer makes it possible to control washing machines based on price signals and energy mix in the grid. The concept was later incorporated into Indecit’s washing machines.

Use the grid to control your heating What will it take to get people to accept intelligent control of their heat pumps? DONG Energy needed an answer to this question in order to develop new flexibility concepts for intelligent control of heat pumps. The concepts were tested in the eFlex project and provided DONG Energy with new knowledge that could strengthen the roll-out of Smart Grid in Denmark. The Alexandra Institute assisted DONG in developing the flexibility concepts that were tested in the project.

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We are specialistsin IT security in the energy sector

In a sector that involves personal data, security is an essen-tial element both in individual solutions and in the national architecture.

The Alexandra Institute specialises in IT security in the energy sector. We help businesses in the sector to un-derstand and solve security problems in both intelligent production systems and applications that are based on or related to energy data.

By involving the Alexandra Institute’s Security Lab, your business ensures that your IT systems, with regard to se-curity, are structured in a way that addresses commercial needs and requirements.

We help to ensure that neither your company nor your customers will get unpleasant ”surprises” in relation to the release of sensitive data.

IT security services typically feature one or more elements:

• Analysis of the company’s IT systems (including a security review of the software).

• Design of security solutions.

• Consultancy in relation to the dialogue with suppliers and customers on IT security. For example to discuss security requirements and features in the organisa-tion’s present or new IT solutions, or to assess if the supplier’s solutions meet the security requirements.

• In-house training and advice on IT security to establish a common language for working effectively with IT security.

As a GTS institute (member of Advanced Technology Group) the Alexandra Institute can also provide documen-tation of the security features and security level of your solutions for you to use towards your customers, suppliers etc. We provide an unbiased description and assessment of your systems - naturally from a prior scoping and dialogue with you.

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ENERGY AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT // IT SECURITY

Energinet.dk provides secure access to data Energinet.dk is operationally responsible for the power infrastructure in Denmark, including the so-called Data-Hub. The purpose of the DataHub is to collect meter data from all power consumers in Denmark in one database. This database is made available to users and players on the power market. A key element in the DataHub is the management of access to this data, which must be avail-able to both common citizens and professionals through a vast number of use cases. It has been of paramount importance to provide a secure solution that protects both personal data and the overall architecture. The Alexandra Institute’s Security Lab has made a security analysis on the DataHub and proposed amendments in this connec-tion. Today, the Alexandra Institute acts as IT security advisor for energinet.dk in connection with the further development and completion of the DataHub.

Kamstrup securesinternational saleKamstrup develops smart meters and other smart grid components for the international market. In a number of markets, there is a growing demand for such products to be secure, i.e. Common Criteria certified or able to provide documentation of security properties or security level. This type of documentation and certification can be costly to obtain. Therefore, Kamstrup needed to upgrade their internal knowledge about IT security, to make a funda-mental security analysis of their product and to develop solutions to any specific identified security problems. In addition, the Alexandra Institute took part in preparing a security analysis of Kamstrup’s smart meters.

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Innovative measures create ’smart cities’

Digitisation changes the way we experience, design and interact with our cities.

With smartphones, cheap sensors and Internet of Things we have the opportunity to instrument the city from top to bottom for the first time.

And with the Internet, cloud and increased computing power, we can collect, store and make sense of the data we retrieve. The information we gather can then be used in urban planning processes to ultimately help us use the city more effectively. This concept is called ‘smart city’.

The new possibilities for collecting knowledge about the city enable us to make even smaller boroughs more efficient. If we can persuade motorists to slow down a bit, avoid tailbacks or inconvenient red lights, the positive impact on the environment is huge.

With smart cities we can achieve sustainability at multiple levels – and in much more detail than before.

Sustainable smart cities encompass the environment, citizen healthcare, citizen satisfaction, citizen involvement and opportunities for citizens to have influence on society. Smart city is a step towards solving societal challenges.

The Alexandra Institute helps municipalities, government institutions and businesses – in particular the energy sec-tor – to harvest the potential of smart cities.

Our goal is to enable our customers to create sustainable solutions that are attractive to both the customer and to society. To achieve this, we use our expertise in computer science, business development and user studies.

We deliver our knowledge to cities in Denmark, Europe and the rest of the world.

The Alexandra Institute’s main role in the projects is to establish open platforms, instrument the city, develop ap-plications and collect knowledge from city data.

Furthermore, we develop business models and provide knowledge about how users can and will use the opportu-nities that arise when data is collected and visualised.

Mirko Presser is manager of the Alexandra Institute’s Smart City Lab and an expert in Internet of Things, open data and the smart city domain in general.

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ENERGY AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT // THE SMART CITY

Open data supports sustainabilityGatesense is a pioneering platform developed by the Al-exandra Institute in collaboration with Grundfos. The plat-form collects data that provides citizens as well as public and private organisations with new knowledge about the city and enables them to develop sustainable services that create value to society. The Alexandra Institute’s role in the project is to develop software and explore business mod-els. User involvement plays a significant part in the project as we communicate and interact with potential users in a natural setting. This gives us valuable insights into how people understand and make use of a product and gives us constructive and high-level feedback.

Aarhus – a smart cityThe City of Aarhus is the first city in Denmark to establish an open data platform: Open Data Aarhus. The Alexan-dra Institute contributes to the development of both the platform and the ecosystem around it. The ecosystem in-cludes the development of a community, design of incen-tive structures to motivate data owners to release their data, business models for developers and the municipality, identification of user needs and citizen involvement. Open Data Aarhus is an example of how the City of Aarhus has decided to enter the smart city domain. With Open Data Aarhus, the city opens data to the citizens to enable them to produce new services, art or comments that can be fed back into the city.

Building a smart city During the past three years, the Alexandra Institute has been engaged in transforming the Spanish city of San-tander into a smart city. More than 12,000 sensors and numerous RFID tags have been used for building up a data set that delivers information at an unprecedented level of detail. The Alexandra Institute has built several smart city applications on the data platform, including a smart parking application and a crowdsensing and crowdsourc-ing application – also known as Pulso de la Ciudad – city pulse. These applications contribute to increasing resource efficiency, reducing CO2 emissions and improving the quality of life of citizens.

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Innovative visualisation of sustainable energysupports visibilityand relevance

Utility customers are now free to choose supplier.

It is essential for utility companies to be able to give their customers a good reason to stay loyal – a reason based on more than just the price.

The customers must get a good user experience and feel committed to all the well-intentioned measures initiated by their utility company in relation to for example green energy. It is also important for customers to receive guid-ance on how to save electricity most effectively.

Other energy companies seek to differentiate themselves and create awareness of their products and services in order to generate sale and maintain their customers.

Energy can be hard to understand, and many people do not pay much attention to energy consumption and energy is-sues in their everyday lives.

Research conducted at the Alexandra Institute shows that it takes something very special to get people involved in energy issues.

To address this fact, the Alexandra Institute has been en-gaged in developing measures for the energy sector that can help end users understand and play an active role in the business area of the energy companies.

We are experts in visualising and presenting energy, for example in the form of interactive exhibitions and presen-tation elements that create a breeding ground for learning and relationship-building between energy company and end user.

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Building relationships and activating users In a major initiative to promote its sustainable energy solutions, the utility company Göteborg Energi (Sweden) wanted to develop a communication tool that would create visibility at exhibitions and enable a more dynamic communication in an educational context.

In close dialogue with Göteborg Energi, the Alexandra Institute developed three interactive screen-based instal-lations, each of which visualises energy production from sun, wind and biogas.

By using the power of their bodies, Göteborg Energi’s customers can now fictively produce energy and thus compete with each other in a fun and engaging way.

Anna-Karin Nilsson from Göteborg Energi says they have had a fantastic collaboration with the Alexandra Institute despite the geographical distance.

– Right from the beginning, we felt that the Alexandra Institute had great customer insight and understood our needs. The installation can be reused again and again in other contexts, which was another of our requirements, she explains.

– The installation is not a one-off product but something that we are going to use many times in the future.

ENERGY AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT // INNOVATIVE VISUALISATION

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Innovation requires expertise across multiple disciplinesWe are experts in methodology, innovation, design, technology choice, hard-ware and programming.

In the energy domain we offer services in effectiveness evaluation and business development as well as unique visualisation concepts and learning resources.

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People often think the effectiveness of energy measures can be evaluated by simply investigating if the energy consumption increases or decreases in the period during which the technology or the measure is in operation.

However, that does not tell us whether a positive or a negative effect is the result of the technology or measure actually applied, or if there are other contributing factors.

To establish if a technology or a measure works, you need to evaluate its effect.

How to measureeffectiveness

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At the Alexandra Institute we are experts in evaluating and documenting the effectiveness of energy technology and energy measures.

By collaborating with us, you obtain knowledge about how and why your technology or measures create effective-ness with your users. This knowledge is valuable if you want to sell your technology as it is or if you want to further enhance it.

In our evaluations in the energy domain, we use a research-based approach developed and adapted for that particular purpose. We call it The Model of Change.

Broadly speaking, we use this method to identify the un-derlying assumptions behind a measure or a product. Then we investigate if these assumptions hold in practice. Thus, we can see why and how the technology or the measures have the desired effect – or if they do not. In our investi-gation we use qualitative and quantitative methods such as interviews, participant observations, cultural probes and questionnaires. We compare the data we collect with measurement data to get the full picture in our conclu-sion. By using different types of data, we are able to both conclude and prove if your technology or measures have the desired effect with your users.

How do you evaluate and document the effectiveness of a measure or a technology? And how do you find out what works for whom – and under what circumstances?

ENERGY AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT // EFFECTIVENESS EVALUATION

What works in council housing?The Danish consultancy firm Energi og Miljø wanted to conduct a best practice study of different energy visualisa-tion technologies in the council housing sector.

To gather knowledge about what works for whom and under what circumstances, they entered into a collabora-tive agreement with the Alexandra Institute who is now in charge of a qualitative evaluation.

Knowledge from the evaluation will be incorporated into the further development of visualisation technologies and a best practice catalogue targeted on the council housing sector. This will enable housing associations to choose the right technology that fits their particular context.

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Learning resourcesTeaching children about energy and sustain-ability is an important part of the curriculum. Today, many schools make targeted efforts to reduce their CO2 footprint. By contributing to the development of learning resources, the energy sector can help improve the learning experience and connect more easily with the very young.

At the Alexandra Institute, we have many years’ experi-ence of developing interactive learning resources for children, and we know what it takes to make subjects like energy and sustainability interesting and easy to under-stand.

As the digital landscape and the educational requirements undergo constant changes, we make sure that the solution is so flexible that it allows smooth updates and further development.

We are in charge of the entire development process from clarification and design to roll-out and implementation in the school. Upon completion, the learning resource is fully operational.

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ENERGY AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT // LEARNING RESOURCES

Our collaboration with the Municipality of Furesø (Den-mark) is one example of such a process. The municipality wanted to identify the opportunities for developing new learning resources to teach children about energy and sustainability.

Several schools in the municipality have installed solar panels and wind generators, and there was a wish to use data from these in the classroom to make the learning experience as interesting as possible.

The Alexandra Institute facilitated a process where teach-ers from several schools met and identified needs and challenges. Based on these findings, we jointly generated ideas for new learning resources.

The Alexandra Institute then further qualified these ideas, after which they were pitched to the decision-makers in the municipality. The municipality decided to proceed with and implement one of the ideas. We are currently design-ing and completing a smartphone solution that uses data from the schools’ own solar panels and wind generators in the teaching process.

By choosing a mobile solution, it is easy to take the teach-ing out of the classroom on an excursion to for example an incinerator plant. The solution may also start a discussion about energy at home with the family.

In continuation of the project H2interaction (a visual exhi-bition about hydrogen technology as a renewable energy source), the Alexandra Institute developed a mobile learn-ing resource in the form of a mobile, interactive floor that can be used in schools around the country.

With this tool the children can read their CO2 footprint by following a route based on their choice of for example food dishes or hobbies.

The team combines knowledge about learning theories, user behaviour and digital means to develop interest-ing solutions that engage the end users and enhance the learning experience.

We design and develop unique learning resources

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The Alexandra Institute is a privately owned, non-profit company that works with applied IT research, development and innovation. Our mission is to create growth in society.

We provide specialist consultancy and knowl-edge on commercial terms to both public and private organisations.

We turn research into societal value*

The Alexandra Institute is a member of GTS – Advanced Technology Group – a network of nine independent Danish research and technology organisations. Our primary focus is communication technology in products and surroundings.

* We have been assigned by the Danish Ministry of Higher Education and Science to help companies apply the newest

research and technology in their products and services with the aim of creating economic and societal value.

Contact us

WWW.LINKEDIN.COM/COMPANY/ALEXANDRA-INSTITUTTET

WWW.FACEBOOK.COM/THEALEXANDRAINSTITUTE

WWW.TWITTER.COM/@ALEXANDRAINST

Rasmus Vedel Business Development Manager +45 30 95 65 35 rasmus.vedel@alexandra.dk

The Alexandra Institute is a non-profit company that provides research, development and innovation within IT.

Our mission is to create societal growth, welfare and value.

THE ALEXANDRA INSTITUTE Aabogade 34 · DK-8200 Aarhus N · +45 7027 7012 Rued Langgaards Vej 7, 5B · DK-2300 Copenhagen S · +45 7027 7091