Achieving a new European Energy Awareness (AURORA)

“It is people who make the difference in climate change, indeed it is often the poorest in our society who stand to gain most from reducing their carbon emissions and saving money on heating, lighting and transport”.

AURORA empowers at least 7,000 citizens across five locations in Denmark, England, Portugal, Slovenia, and Spain to make more informed energy decisions. The citizens will monitor their individual energy behaviour in a mobile app, and receive automated recommendations in return. By crowdfunding local energy communities and building ca. 1 megawatt in photovoltaic power, these citizens will become active ‘prosumers’ to transform the energy system at large, and democratise its governance.  The project will provide research data on how to motivate citizens to deliver their own personal carbon reductions in line with the Paris Agreement Climate Action targets and test an innovative personal energy labelling system used to track progress

Horizon 2020 – Grant Agreement No. 101036418 

Aim

Enabling citizens to act on climate change, for sustainable development and environmental protection through education, citizen science, observation initiatives, and civic engagement.

To transform local community groups into active energy communities providing citizen science hubs for an energy transition to renewable energy. The project will support activities in 5 country pilots including:

• a personal energy/carbon tracking system (an App) that people can use to monitor their energy use;
• personalised guidance, based on the data individuals provide, on the measures over 7000 participants can take to reduce energy use and carbon emissions towards the goal of zero carbon;
• the creation of five public - private community financed local renewable energy facilities of 1MW each, to power over 3,000 homes that citizen can use to offset their carbon production;
• providing tools and techniques that local people can use and develop at the local level  to support the energy transition and a more efficient use of energy, including energy loss contests using thermography techniques, the use of collaborative community carbon and energy reduction roadmaps, and hackathons to create low cost energy sensors using Arduino devices;
• Energy/carbon labelling system for home energy use and transport; and
• the recruitment of 150 energy ambassadors in 15 countries to support replication of the project success,  and promote wider behavioural change.

How to participate

Citizens can participate at any one of the five pilot locations at:

• Aarhus University Denmark - https://www.aurora-h2020.eu/au-main/ -  Ze Zhang: zhe@mpe.au.dk or Dr Marta Victoria: mvp@mpe.au.dk
• University of Ljubljani Slovenia - https://www.aurora-h2020.eu/ul-main/ - Matevž Bokalič: matevz.bokalic@fe.uni-lj.si
• Évora University Portugal - https://www.aurora-h2020.eu/eu-main/ - Luís Fialho: lafialho@uevora.pt
• Forest of Dean Municipality United Kingdom - https://www.aurora-h2020.eu/fod-home/ - Emma-Jayne Williams: fod.energycommunity@fdean.gov.uk
• Technical University of Madrid Spain - https://www.aurora-h2020.eu/um-main - Ana Belen Cristobal Lopez: anabelen.cristobal@upm.es

Citizens can also register an interest in the project and use any of the open access tools to start their own local initiative at info@aurora-h2020.eu.

Needed equipment

An APP will be provided to all participants who take part in the project to log their energy use along with simple low cost energy sensors developed during the project.

Citizens taking part will also be able to invest in community solar infrastucture developed at each of the pilot sites.

About funding

Funding bodies: European Comission

Horizon 2020

Active from 01/12/2021 until 01/05/2025

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