Meet the Meter: Visualising SmartGrids Using Self-Organising Electronic Institutions and Serious Games

Given that SmartGrids focus on the demand-side and are predicated on consumer participation, we propose an innovative user-infrastructure interface for SmartGrids, in which information visualisation for comparative feedback and new affordances for the Smart Meter are integrated within a virtual environment for a Serious Game. Moreover, in the context of a micro-Grid, we seek to encapsulate aspects of self-organisation and support the principles of enduring institutions through the same interface. We give an example to explain how some of the activities (rooms in the virtual environment) can be structured within the context of an electronic institution. In this way, we aim to use the Smart Meter to promote `assistive awareness', not just for consumer participation, but also for other aspects of user engagement with critical infrastructure, for example as a citizen, as a stakeholder, and as a practitioner.