Yael Parag is representing the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) Herzliya, which is responsible for the users’ engagement in the framework of InBetween project.
1. How did you come to know about the opportunity to join InBetween Project’s Consortium?
Through Marko Pupin from Pupin after we had worked on other FP7 projects together.
2. Why did you decide to join InBetween project’s consortium?
The topic matched my area of interest which is consumer engagement in the energy system and how to encourage consumers to save energy on their daily activities.
3. Is it the first time that you are working for a H2020 research project? If no, was your previous experience useful for the development of InBetween? How?
We have been involved in other projects. Prior experience always helps to understand what is expected.
4. What do you like the most about the fact of being part of an international partnership?
Meeting and working with a group of interesting people that share the same goals, putting my research ideas and conclusions, regarding consumer behavior when it comes to energy efficiency, to the test in a real setting – in the projects two demo sites. The international partnership exposes us to the social and cultural contexts of energy consumption. A multi-cultural perspective provides an important lens of analysis to any project that focuses on demand and aims to engage consumers from different backgrounds and different energy consumption norms.
5. Concerning InBetween, what’s your main role in the project?
Providing the consumer behavior analysis. We collected technical and personal information on the tenants in the two demo sites and based on this information– we apply various tailored consumer engagement approaches and techniques in order to increase their engagement in the different stages of the consortium.
6. Concerning the project’s impacts, what’s your main role? What are you doing to assure energy savings/ what are you doing to assure energy behavioral change?
We are measuring and analyzing the consumers’ behavior so as to allow the project partners to make the most meaningful suggestions in the most appropriate manner to them in order to encourage a change in their energy consumption behavior.
