Energy Management in the Smart Home

The issues of energy supply of a smart home (building) are considered, taking into account alternative power sources. The components of the energy supply system and the life support subsystem of a smart building, the functions assigned to the energy management system are analyzed, the feasibility of developing such a system to save electricity and solar in the building is shown. The structure of the building automation system is proposed, taking into account the characteristics of alternative power sources and possible restrictions on their use. Approaches to energy management in a smart building using the theory of fuzzy sets and features of such intelligent control are shown

What's energy management got to do with it? Exploring the role of energy management in the smart home adoption process

There are high hopes for smart home technology to deliver Home Energy Management (HEM) solutions, including through smart thermostats, plugs, lights, switches, and appliances. However, adoption of these technologies is lagging behind expectations. Moreover, it is unclear how energy management features in the smart home consumer adoption process. We know there is technical potential for the smart home to support energy management, but we know little about the degree to which energy benefits interest consumers and motivate them to adopt smart home technologies relative to non-energy benefits such as security, comfort, and convenience, which could have implications for increasing rather than decreasing energy consumption. To that point, we know little about whether and how the energy management functionalities of smart home products are actually used by adopters. The present research investigated consumers’ knowledge of, attitudes toward, and experiences with smart home technologies that have energy management functionalities (smart HEMS), in order to assess barriers to adoption and to achieving purported energy benefits. Specifically, we studied shoppers at smart home retailers to gauge their existing awareness of and attitudes toward smart HEMS, and we analyzed Amazon customer reviews of smart HEMS to better understand early adopters’ motivations and experiences. Results revealed challenges to achieving energy benefits with existing products and marketing strategies, and implications for shaping the future of these technologies to achieve energy demand reductions and load shifting capabilities at scale for the smart home and smart grid of the future

Of impacts, agents, and functions: An interdisciplinary meta-review of smart home energy management systems research

Smart home energy management technologies (SHEMS) have long been viewed as a promising opportunity to manage the way households use energy. Research on this topic has emerged across a variety of disciplines, focusing on different pieces of the SHEMS puzzle without offering a holistic vision of how these technologies and their users will influence home energy use moving forward. This paper presents the results of a systematic, interdisciplinary meta-review of SHEMS literature, assessing the extent to which it discusses the role of various SHEMS components in driving energy benefits. Results reveal a bias towards technical perspectives and controls approaches that seek to drive energy impacts such as load management and energy savings through SHEMS without user or third-party participation. Not only are techno-centric approaches more common, there is also a lack of integration of these approaches with user-centric, information-based solutions for driving energy impacts. These results suggest future work should investigate more holistic solutions for optimal impacts on household energy use. We hope these results will provoke a broader discussion about how to advance research on SHEMS to capitalize on their potential contributions to demand-side management initiatives moving forward

Intelligent Energy Management in Residential Building

Residential building has high consumption of energy especially electrical energy. This motivates researchers to work on how to improve residential building energy efficiency. However, the improvement of energy efficiency in a building is difficult to be done for the whole building at a time. Some of the difficulty is the inefficient of energy management system in the building, but the biggest contribution to the deficiency is that there is no optimal algorithm which is suitable to the facilities in the building. An intelligent energy management system has been proposed in this paper to address this problem which include the integrated optimal control system consists of an occupancy sensor network and adaptive dynamic programming algorithm. To increase accuracy and avoid faults in available sensor technology, multiple sensors are being used in this project including passive infra-red sensors, Ultrasonic sensors and Carbon Dioxide concentration sensors have been installed to set up a hybrid occupancy detection sensor network. It is very critical to control and optimization for complex systems such as the system constituted by all electromechanical systems in a building. It learns from environment of a building and generates a series of optimal control strategies to preserve human comfort and improve energy efficiency in low cost

Energy Scenarios for Ambitious and Effective Nigerian’s Nationally Determined Contributions

Nigeria's Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) shows commitment to supporting the Paris Agreement towards reducing the global warming and negative impacts of climate change. However, some gaps need to be bridged in order to make Nigeria’s NDC more ambitious and effective. Therefore, this paper presents energy scenarios that could support the revision of existing Nigeria’s NDC to ambitiously limit GHG emissions while promoting increased access to green energy. The paper systematically establishes gaps in the existing NDC, namely circumvention of subsisting energy-related policies, lumped energy efficiency pathways, overconcentration on solar PV, neglect of the residential sector, neglect of advanced emissions control technology and neglect of on-grid renewable energy utilisation. The paper also presents pertinent recommendations to bridge the established gaps, which are critical for the NDC revision. It is pertinent that the NDC revision should consider all the aspects of energy supply and demand sides in a transparent and equitable process. It envisaged that the judicious and equitable consideration of the recommendations in this work would make Nigeria’s NDC ambitious and effective. Keywords: nationally determined contributions, energy sector, energy policies, demand-side energy efficiency, residential sector DOI: 10.7176/JETP/10-7-04 Publication date: December 30th 202

What is the energy price of independent living? A review of energy consumption of AT products in inclusive smart homes

Maintaining good health and independence for as long as possible is essential for a globally ageing population and people with disabilities. Assistive Technology (AT) products are intended to enhance the functional capabilities and increase independence for elderly and individuals living with disabilities. Some of AT products are relatively low-tech devices such as glasses, grips, and crutches. The application of safety-critical products that consume comparatively large amounts of domestic energy may require additional consideration in regions where reliability of energy delivery may be an issue. A mainstream ‘smart home’ offers the owner the convenience of monitoring and controlling their domestic environment. These proprietary environmental controllers are now affordable through commercial systems such as monitoring and controlling environment controllers for instance Hive, Amazon Alexa, Echo and Siri etc. These systems are often low-voltage and do not appear to add significantly to domestic energy consumption. Individuals and families living with a cognitive or physical disability often require motorized systems that draw much more energy than monitoring systems. Whilst energy consumption relating to mainstream smart homes is well documented, energy use in daily activities among those with physical disability is less well defined. This leads to the question: “what is energy consumption and associated cost for independent living for the people with disabilities within a smart home?” To explore this question further, a literature review of smart home and specific high-energy requirement equipment was completed. Databases were chosen that provide a wide range of literature that has a focus on smart homes and AT products associated with tasks that aid manual handling and moving. A number of personas were created from information gathered from the literature review to provide an indication of the amount of energy consumed, with an indication of when spikes in demand may occur. The study concludes with the comparison of an AT smart home with a mainstream equivalent, savings in care costs and consequences of power outage for the AT homes. Areas for further research are also suggested

Electricity market design for the prosumer era

Prosumers are agents that both consume and produce energy. With the growth in small and medium-sized agents using solar photovoltaic panels, smart meters, vehicle-to-grid electric automobiles, home batteries and other ‘smart’ devices, prosuming offers the potential for consumers and vehicle owners to re-evaluate their energy practices. As the number of prosumers increases, the electric utility sector of today is likely to undergo significant changes over the coming decades, offering possibilities for greening of the system, but also bringing many unknowns and risks that need to be identified and managed. To develop strategies for the future, policymakers and planners need knowledge of how prosumers could be integrated effectively and efficiently into competitive electricity markets. Here we identify and discuss three promising potential prosumer markets related to prosumer grid integration, peer-to-peer models and prosumer community groups. We also caution against optimism by laying out a series of caveats and complexities

A low-cost secure iot mechanism for monitoring and controlling polygeneration microgrids

The use of Internet-connected devices at homes has increased to monitor energy consumption. Furthermore, renewable energy sources have also increased, reducing electricity bills. However, the high cost of the equipment limits the use of these technologies. This paper presents a low-cost secured-distributed Internet of Things (IoT) system to monitor and control devices connected in a polygeneration microgrid, as a combined power system for local loads with renewable sources. The proposed mechanism includes a Wireless Sensor Actuator Networked Control System that links network nodes using the IEEE 802.15.4 standard. The Internet communication enables the monitor and control of devices using a mobile application to increase the efficiency. In addition, security mechanisms are implemented at several levels including the authentication, encryption, and decryption of the transmitted data. Furthermore, a firewall and a network intrusion detection-and-prevention program are implemented to increase the system protection against cyber-attack. The feasibility of the proposed solution was demonstrated using a DC microgrid test bench consisting of a diverse range of renewable energy sources and loads

Design and implementation of an improved power-electronic system for feeding loads of smart homes in remote areas using renewable energy sources

Abstract This paper suggests an improved step‐up step‐down DC‐DC system along with three‐input and four‐output for smart home applications. In this configuration, two unidirectional power ports have been identified as an Input power supply and one bidirectional power port for the power‐saving element, which can be used as a bidirectional converter for the hybrid vehicle to discharge in a dependent structure. This system can be used to combine renewable energy sources like photovoltaic (PV), fuel cell, battery and hybrid vehicle (HV) to prepare power for remote smart homes. By using this system, serving different loads with different voltage range from high voltage to ultra‐low voltage is possible, also battery charge and discharge with the energy‐saving method can be achieved. In this system, the condition of all possible low‐voltage load and high‐voltage load conditions has been assumed. In this structure, nine power switches have been used, in which all of these switches are in control with independent and dependent duty cycles. By using these cycles, maximum power can be earned from PV sources, bus‐bar voltage regulation, and battery power control is possible too. In this topology, depending on environmental conditions, five scenarios have been identified. To prove the capability of the system before the build, some valid simulations are needed. In this study, the suggested system has been simulated with power system computer aided design/electromagnetic transients including DC (PSCAD/EMTDC)