Social Electricity

Social Electricity is a social application aiming to motivate people to become more aware of their electricity consumption, by means of comparisons with the corresponding electrical consumption of their Facebook friends, as well as with the total consumption in the street / neighbourhood / village / city / country where they live. By effective and realistic comparisons, the consumers may perceive their energy behaviour and take steps to reduce their electricity and carbon footprint.

It constitutes a research project of the Computer Science Department, University of Cyprus, supported by the Electricity Authority of Cyprus (EAC), which provides to the project the domestic consumptions of the Cypriot citizens every two months, categorized according to their address. It is part of the Social Electricity Online Platform (SEOP) European project.

Respecting the privacy of Cypriots, this data is anonymous and is aggregated in street/neighborhood level, to further ensure the anonymity of the consumers and their consumptions. Through Facebook, people can compare their consumption with their online friends. Furthermore, users may view statistics concerning the areas with the least/most energy consumption in their neighbourhood, province or even the whole of Cyprus.

Social Electricity application is an innovative initiative worldwide and has been awarded the first prize in an international competition for Green Applications (2nd ITU Green ICT Application Challenge is the United Nations specialized agency for information and communication technologies (ICTs).

This mobile application has been developed by Demetris Stokkos, a graduate student of the Computer Science Dept. of University of Cyprus, as part of his master thesis.