The Digital Environment Home Energy Management System (DEHEMS) project presented by the Commission shows that, when consumers receives more information about their energy use, and can share and compare this with neighbours and family, they is more likely to change their behaviour.

The European Commission presented the Digital Environment Home Energy Management System (DEHEMS) project, an EU-funded project which has already been tested in the United Kingdom and Bulgaria, and can show consumers to reduce energy usage by an average of 8% when provided with an "information dashboard" about their energy use. A recently published survey showed that citizens EU citizens want mandatory energy savings.

The DEHEMS project, which received EU financial contribution and the project partnership includes a mix of European local authorities, private business and universities, has a dashboard, a screen, which can be seen on a stand-alone monitor, as well as on a variety of hand held devices, smart phones and PCs. The dashboard can profile the average daily energy usage according to the number of bedrooms, the number of occupants and property type. Since data is transmitted via the Internet to a central server, comparisons can be made between households of the same type. Therefore, users are not only informed about their own energy consumption, but can also see if they are high, medium or low energy users, compared to others in the same category.

The EU-funded system presents data every 6 seconds through a small digital display. According to the European Commission Vice President Neelie Kroes, the DEHEMS system could set a huge trend in the coming years. She also added that the DEHEMS project shows that very simple technologies can go a long way to helping Europe reduce energy use. So far, two commercial products are available: The "Energyhive" (www.energyhive.co.uk) and its network that enables members to get a real time view of their home energy consumption 24/7 through a web browser and "Greenica" which offers special products for homes, schools and small businesses.