H2020 ACCEPT project: D3.8 – Consumer engagement and design validation roadmap v2

A key part of the ACCEPT project is developing tools and services with energy communities, as opposed to for energy communities. To ensure this user-centred approach is taken for the development of these tools and services, it is essential to have a comprehensive consumer engagement and design validation roadmap. By implementing a well-defined methodology and considering the engagement activities required for consumers and prosumers as well as activities for validating the ACCEPT tools and services a comprehensive consumer engagement and design validation roadmap has been defined. The generation of the engagement and design validation roadmap was reliant on the implementation of a new methodology. In the previous methodology outlined in D3.7, the pilot-specific engagement roadmaps would be defined following remote-based workshops and interviews with pilot partners and pilot community members. However, without undertaking an in-person site visit, as opposed to a remote-based methodology, first-hand community research and face-to-face interactions with the community, the information gathered for developing a pilot-specific engagement plan was deemed sub-optimal. Therefore, the methodology for planning the pilot-specific engagement roadmaps was delayed to ensure information from the in-person site visit could be incorporated into the planning. Currently, 3 of the 4 in-person site visits have been completed, with the final site visit scheduled for the end of M23 (November 2022). Following the completion of the site visits, checkpoint meetings with each pilot site leader are planned for M26 in which the pilot-specific engagement roadmaps will be defined. The consumer engagement and design validation roadmap is comprised of two main elements, consumer engagement, which focuses on the needs of pilot site communities, citizens and stakeholders and design validation, which focuses on gathering feedback on the ACCEPT project solutions and services, such as persona development, user testing or business model assessment. With regards to the consumer engagement element, to ensure the required activities are included which accommodate the unique community needs within each pilot region. To this end, the site visits currently being conducted provided an opportunity to gather information to build an understanding of the environment, culture and society and interact with community members in each pilot region. The insights from the observations of the site visits and the information and feedback gathered for the community interactions were analysed through a Barriers, Needs and Opportunities model to identify key topics of interest which are vital for the planning of a pilotspecific engagement roadmap. Regarding the design validation element, two key engagement activity plans have been defined related to the tools and services, persona development and C-APP user testing. The persona development research allows for the identification of profiles based on real users within a community. A clear plan for the personas is defined, detailing each required step from the questionnaire design, to the analysis and finalisation of persona profiles which can be validated and used as a guide for developers of the C-APP. Concerning the technical development of the C-APP, a framework for the development of the C-APP which includes internal (project partners) and external (community end users) assessment is provided. A process is defined for the planning of the external user testing which includes a step-by-step explanation and timeline for defining the goals of the session, preparing the required materials, and conducting training sessions with pilot partners so they are prepared to carry out user testing with the community members, executing the user testing sessions and analysing the feedback generated