Energy Feedback for Smart Grid Consumers: Lessons Learned from the Kukui Cup Robert S. Brewer, Yongwen Xu, George E. Lee, Michelle Katchuck, Carleton A. Moore, Philip M. Johnson Department of Information and Computer Sciences University of Hawaii at Manoa Honolulu, HI, USA {rbrewer, yxu, gelee, katchuck, cmoore, johnson}@hawaii.edu Abstract—To achieve the full benefits of the Smart Grid, end users must become active participants in the energy ecosystem. This paper presents the Kukui Cup challenge, a serious game designed around the topic of energy conservation which incorporates a variety of energy feedback visualizations, a multifaceted serious game with online educational activities, and real-world activities such as workshops and excursions. We describe our experiences in developing energy feedback visualizations in the Kukui Cup based on in-lab evaluations and field studies in college residence halls. We learned that energy feedback systems should address these factors: they should be actionable, that domain knowledge must go hand in hand with energy feedback systems, and that this feedback must be “sticky” to lead to changes in behaviors and attitudes. Keywords-Serious games; energy feedback; energy; energy literacy; smart grid. I. I NTRODUCTION The development of the Smart Grid and the two-way com- munication that it provides have enabled a variety of new customer-facing possibilities including real-time feedback on electricity usage, real-time pricing, and demand response. However, to make full use of this potential, end-users of the Smart Grid will need to be engaged about their electricity use, and become more energy literate. We believe that in addition to a Smart Grid, we need Smart Consumers. In this context, we have developed the Kukui Cup Chal- lenge, a serious game [1] (a game with additional goals beyond just entertainment) designed around the topic of energy. The Kukui Cup includes a variety of energy feedback visualizations [2] designed to inform and engage the players about their energy use. The Kukui Cup also includes a multifaceted online game with educational activities, and real-world activities such as workshops and excursions [3]. The Kukui Cup is designed to provide players with insight into how their behaviors affect energy consumption and pro- duction. Such behaviors occur on a spectrum, from the short- term, immediate impact behaviors such as turning off lights, to the longer-term, collective impact of behaviors such as considering the energy policies of political candidates when deciding how to vote. Creating a challenge that helps players understand energy from this wide scope sets the Kukui Cup apart from other similar “energy game” initiatives. It also impacts on our understanding of effective feedback for smart grid customer-facing applications. Based on our experiences designing and evaluating energy feedback in the Kukui Cup, we have three recommen- dations for designing energy feedback systems for smart grid consumers: they should be actionable, that domain knowledge must go hand in hand with feedback systems, and that this feedback must be “sticky” to lead to changes in behaviors and attitudes. This paper explores how we came to these conclusions, and what evidence we have collected that supports these conclusions. In this paper, we first describe the Kukui Cup system, fol- lowed by an explanation of how energy goals and baselines are used in the Kukui Cup. With that foundation, we discuss our results from developing and deploying the Kukui Cup in the field over two years in the areas of designing energy feedback visualizations, the importance of energy literacy in understanding energy feedback, and our use of a serious game to encourage users to engage with the energy feedback information. Finally, we end with sections describing our plans for future work and conclusions. II. THE KUKUI CUP College residence hall energy competitions have become a widespread mechanism for engaging students in energy issues, with more than 160 taking place or being planned for the 2010–2011 academic year in North America [4]. Resi- dence hall energy competitions are events where residence halls or floors within a residence hall compete to see which building will use the least energy over a period of time. The competitions tap into both the residents’ competitive urges, and their interest in environmental issues. However, unlike home residents, the dormitory residents typically do not financially benefit from any reduction in electricity use resulting from their behavior changes, since residence hall fees are flat-rate and do not change based on energy usage. Since they lack even a monthly bill as feedback, residents are completely unaware of their energy usage, Residence hall energy competition technologies range in complexity from simple web pages with weekly electricity data to complicated web applications [5, pp. 6–11]. An early adopter of the residence hall energy competition, Oberlin