Play the game: Learning about energy efficiency can be fun - seriously!

Industrial and service sectors offers potential for cost-effective energy-savings. But under-investment in energy efficiency is observed in all EU countries. This is called the «energy-efficiency gap». In order to be implemented by companies, energy-efficiency measures have to be analysed and communicated taking into account the various professional interests and cultures prevailing in a corporate context. Well beyond the mainstream energy-saving analysis, a multidisciplinary approach is needed, which requires training of energy-efficiency engineers. Classical training for energy engineers focuses on lectures in combination with individual exercises. This training has several shortcomings: exercises usually focus on simple techno-economic assessments; the variety of information sources and interests in a company are improperly represented; strategic concepts, such as competitive advantage or core business, are not included. Therefore classical training does not develop the skills needed to deal with the multidisciplinary aspects of energy-efficiency measures. It is also well known in pedagogical sciences that, in professional training, the motivation for learning increases when participants can directly apply what they are taught. By providing a virtual training environment, serious games offer the opportunity to manage complex problems and to directly apply any theoretical framework in a fun and collaborative way. Our paper first part discusses serious games general concepts and methods. Secondly it presents a new serious game developed as a training tool for a capacity-building program on the multiple benefits of energy efficiency. This game puts the participants in the context of an industrial company. In this virtual company, participants play the role of an energy manager who wants to get an energy-efficiency project approved by the investment committee. In order to succeed participants have to virtually interact with the company's staff members to collect the relevant information to set up their project. The paper's third part presents first results of training sessions using this serious game.