CARDET participates with partners from Austria, Slovakia, Slovenia, Malta, and Lithuania in the Lifelong Learning Program Social Electricity Platform (SEOP), which is leaded by the University of Cyprus. The SEOP was launched in January 2014 and will be completed in December 2015. This is a European Commission funded project that aims at educating people about energy practices and techniques and about the energy conservation for the society and the environment.

This project has two main objectives; (a) to help people to become more energy- aware and to conserve energy and (b) to develop new learning strategies and techniques to educate people effectively towards environmental sustainability. To achieve those goals this project encourages people, through the online platform and through a Facebook application, to engage in energy-saving practices, forming communities related to sustainability and proper use of energy, increasing their willingness to help other people to become more sensitive about energy and about their physical and urban environment.

The Social Electricity Online Platform will provide a full pack of modules on the use of social electricity, digital Literacy (for the uses of Social Electricity, social media and the online platform), good practices for electricity consumption efficiency, introduction to energy savings at personal and communal level, and a trainers and adaptation manual.

The online platform also hosts a SEOP Facebook application, which helps people perceive their electrical consumption, by means of comparisons with the corresponding consumption of their friends, as well as with the total consumption in the area where they live. Social Electricity is a pioneer tool that capitalizes social media and interactivity, where users provide their electricity consumption data, compare them with data of their friends/neighbours, and this allows them to understand their electricity footprint, taking at the same time measures to minimize their electricity consumption, collaborating with the community by means of exchanging good practices and techniques for saving energy.

Overall, the utilization of good practices in energy efficiency consumption, through the use of social media, the Internet/web and ICT, make this project a pioneer approach and initiative in the field, providing an interdisciplinary set of knowledge on lifelong skills towards all EU citizens.

This project has been funded with support from the European Commission.
This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.
[Project No: 543375-LLP-1-2013-1-CY-KA3-KA3MP]