From Consumers to Participants: A Framework for the design of engaging apps to foster participation in the Electricity System

Abstract

The active involvement of citizens in energy markets is critical for advancing the energy transition, yet most digital tools fail to engage users beyond superficial interaction. This paper presents a modular framework for the design of mobile applications that foster sustained user engagement in participation schemes in energy markets (energy communities, peer-to-peer and demand response). First, repositories with traditional engagement tools are analysed and new tools are proposed to be used in energy apps. All the tools are classified according to the activation profile of the organiser and the user. With these tools, a layered architecture is built, the framework classifies system elements into components, modules, tokens and clusters based on their logical behaviour, data structure and interaction purpose. It integrates engagement strategies to support user participation. The framework is applied to five real-world representative cases: three related to energy and two unrelated but with high engagement. A gap analysis reveals that existing energy apps underutilise motivational and social tools, such as challenges, rewards, social interactions and personalisation. A hypothetical app is proposed to demonstrate how digital energy platforms can evolve into participatory ecosystems by integrating voting modules, token-based recognition, storyline progression and secure community governance. The proposed approach bridges the behavioural and technical domains, offering a flexible methodology to support long-term user participation and literacy in the energy domain.