Sustainable Urban Community Eco-Feedback through Simulation-enabled Performance Dashboards

As global energy consumption is on the rise, energy usage awareness technologies are needed to reduce negative environmental effects. Energy monitoring technologies, known as Eco-Feedback Systems, are attempting to serve as tools that motivate individuals and communities to adopt sustainable living behaviours. However, their feedback to users is limited to past and present measured data, with limited ability to predict future energy consumption when users adopt more sustainable practices. This paper, therefore, focuses on developing a workflow for an interactive dashboard interface that allows the user to track and make energy-conscious decisions. The workflow uses calibrated urban-scale simulation-based predictions of future residential energy use data, to provide real-time tailored display feedback of various energy behaviour and design alteration scenarios.