La Meva Energia: The web app that will advise Barcelona’s citizens on energy consumption begins to take shape

The development and design of a web app that will provide guidance and information to citizens regarding the procedures and formalities associated with energy use within their homes is just the beginning of the project.

Followig a collaborative creation process between the project partners, Associació Benestar i Desenvolupament – Grup ABD, Associació Ecoserveis and BitGenoma, in which the coordinators of the Energy Advice Points of Barcelona also participated, some of the functionalities that the application will include have begun to be defined.

The user’s side is currently working to define what needs the application has to cover in order to provide a service both for the people who are assisted by the PAE and, in the future, for any citizen who wants to adjust and control their electricity, water, or gas consumption. The application will improve communication between PAE professionals and users, provide more specific and up-to-date information on the status of procedures and allow people who use the application to manage their energy more independently.

“The person will be able to fill in questionnaires, provide their details and even make an appointment without having to contact the services through the usual channels, which are email or telephone,” explains Sofia Recio, technical and energy rights coordinator of the EAPs. “We are in the process of opening a new door to this service by streamlining all the bureaucracy of the formalities and procedures that involve the professionals, thereby enhancing the quality and care of the individuals who access the service,” she says.

Replication Challenge

One of the challenges is to see how the application could be replicated in another city once it has been designed, taking the city of Barcelona as a first pilot test.

Marc Tejedor, a technician at ABD’s My Enery, says the product is being used in other cities because there isn’t enough energy advice in Catalonia. “[These services] exist, they depend on each municipality and each municipality offers them in the way they consider and using the tools they consider”, he adds. “At the local level, we are working towards the same objective”, he explained, but with the web app they want to try to overcome this diversity in management “by promoting a tool that is useful and that can be applied in other municipalities”. As acknowledged by BitGenoma developer Michelle Lema, this is a complex undertaking. “We will provide an open tool, but it will be the responsibility of each municipality to implement this system and adjust the application to their needs”.

Even though the development of the application is still in its infancy, the team has already established connections with other entities and ongoing initiatives, and the general reaction has been overwhelmingly positive. Tejedor says, “It has generated interest in the web app”.

In Catalonia, energy poverty is increasingly high, according to Sofia Recio. The aim of this app, which uses open source to make it, is to encourage administrations to see the need for a similar service, such as Barcelona or Santa Coloma; “It is crucial to see the importance of this service and extend it to the public”, she says. Therefore, the incorporation of this web app would facilitate more fluid communication between professionals and users, facilitate attention by professionals, and enhance transparency in relation to procedures and formalities for citizens.