Integration of Legacy Appliances into Home Energy Management Systems

The progressive installation of renewable energy sources requires the coordination of energy consuming devices. At consumer level, this coordination can be done by a home energy management system (HEMS). Interoperability issues need to be solved among smart appliances as well as between smart and non-smart, i.e., legacy devices. We expect current standardization efforts to soon provide technologies to design smart appliances in order to cope with the current interoperability issues. Nevertheless, common electrical devices affect energy consumption significantly and therefore deserve consideration within energy management applications. This paper discusses the integration of smart and legacy devices into a generic system architecture and, subsequently, elaborates the requirements and components which are necessary to realize such an architecture including an application of load detection for the identification of running loads and their integration into existing HEM systems. We assess the feasibility of such an approach with a case study based on a measurement campaign on real households. We show how the information of detected appliances can be extracted in order to create device profiles allowing for their integration and management within a HEMS

Secure Communication Architecture for Dynamic Energy Management in Smart Grid

open access articleSmart grid takes advantage of communication technologies for efficient energy management and utilization. It entails sacrifice from consumers in terms of reducing load during peak hours by using a dynamic energy pricing model. To enable an active participation of consumers in load management, the concept of home energy gateway (HEG) has recently been proposed in the literature. However, the HEG concept is rather new, and the literature still lacks to address challenges related to data representation, seamless discovery, interoperability, security, and privacy. This paper presents the design of a communication framework that effectively copes with the interoperability and integration challenges between devices from different manufacturers. The proposed communication framework offers seamless auto-discovery and zero- con figuration-based networking between heterogeneous devices at consumer sites. It uses elliptic-curve-based security mechanism for protecting consumers' privacy and providing the best possible shield against different types of cyberattacks. Experiments in real networking environment validated that the proposed communication framework is lightweight, secure, portable with low-bandwidth requirement, and flexible to be adopted for dynamic energy management in smart grid

Smart Grid Communications: Overview of Research Challenges, Solutions, and Standardization Activities

Optimization of energy consumption in future intelligent energy networks (or Smart Grids) will be based on grid-integrated near-real-time communications between various grid elements in generation, transmission, distribution and loads. This paper discusses some of the challenges and opportunities of communications research in the areas of smart grid and smart metering. In particular, we focus on some of the key communications challenges for realizing interoperable and future-proof smart grid/metering networks, smart grid security and privacy, and how some of the existing networking technologies can be applied to energy management. Finally, we also discuss the coordinated standardization efforts in Europe to harmonize communications standards and protocols.Comment: To be published in IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorial

Simplified Algorithm for Dynamic Demand Response in Smart Homes Under Smart Grid Environment

Under Smart Grid environment, the consumers may respond to incentive--based smart energy tariffs for a particular consumption pattern. Demand Response (DR) is a portfolio of signaling schemes from the utility to the consumers for load shifting/shedding with a given deadline. The signaling schemes include Time--of--Use (ToU) pricing, Maximum Demand Limit (MDL) signals etc. This paper proposes a DR algorithm which schedules the operation of home appliances/loads through a minimization problem. The category of loads and their operational timings in a day have been considered as the operational parameters of the system. These operational parameters determine the dynamic priority of a load, which is an intermediate step of this algorithm. The ToU pricing, MDL signals, and the dynamic priority of loads are the constraints in this formulated minimization problem, which yields an optimal schedule of operation for each participating load within the consumer provided duration. The objective is to flatten the daily load curve of a smart home by distributing the operation of its appliances in possible low--price intervals without violating the MDL constraint. This proposed algorithm is simulated in MATLAB environment against various test cases. The obtained results are plotted to depict significant monetary savings and flattened load curves.Comment: This paper was accepted and presented in 2019 IEEE PES GTD Grand International Conference and Exposition Asia (GTD Asia). Furthermore, the conference proceedings has been published in IEEE Xplor

A System Complexity Approach to Swarm Electrification

The study investigates a bottom-up concept for microgrids. Financial analysis is performed through a business model approach to test for viability when replacing a researched energy expenditure baseline in Bangladesh. A literature review compares the approach to current trends in microgrids. A case study of Bangladesh illustrates the potential for building on the existing infrastructure base of solar home systems. Opportunities are identified to improve access to reliable energy through a microgrid approach that aims at community-driven economic and infrastructure development by building on network effects generated through the inclusion of localized economies with strong producer-consumer linkages embedded within larger systems of trade and exchange. The analysed approach involves the linking together of individual stand-alone energy systems to form a microgrid that can eventually interconnect with present legacy infrastructure consisting of national or regional grids. The approach is likened to the concept of swarm intelligence, where each individual node brings independent input to create a conglomerate of value greater than the sum of its parts

CleanTX Analysis on the Smart Grid

The utility industry in the United States has an opportunity to revolutionize its electric grid system by utilizing emerging software, hardware and wireless technologies and renewable energy sources. As electricity generation in the U.S. increases by over 30% from today’s generation of 4,100 Terawatt hours per year to a production of 5,400 Terawatt hours per year by 2030, a new type of grid is necessary to ensure reliable and quality power. The projected U.S. population increase and economic growth will require a grid that can transmit and distribute significantly more power than it does today. Known as a Smart Grid, this system enables two- way transmission of electrons and information to create a demand-response system that will optimize electricity delivery to consumers. This paper outlines the issues with the current grid infrastructure, discusses the economic advantages of the Smart Grid for both consumers and utilities, and examines the emerging technologies that will enable cleaner, more efficient and cost- effective power transmission and consumption.IC2 Institut

Design and Implementation of UPnP-based Energy Gateway for Demand Side Management in Smart Grid

Legacy electrical grids are urged to evolve towards smart grids, the smarter power delivery system that relies heavily on ICT. Numerous smart grids applications are expected to be developed for efficient management and utilization of electricity at the demand side such as home automation, Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI), dynamic energy pricing, efficient load management, etc. For easing and boosting the development of new demand side services, the concept of Home Energy Gateway (HEG) has recently been proposed in literature. It involves communication with the utility as well as with devices at the consumer sites. The literature still lacks a comprehensive HEG design that could provide all essential features such as zero-configuration, auto-discovery, seamless plug & play communication, interoperability and integration, customers privacy and communication security.This paper addresses the HEG challenges in an effective way through the design of suitable communication frameworks and a security mechanism for enabling strong protection against cyber attacks. The proposed system effectively copes with the interoperability and integration issues between plethora of heterogeneous devices at the consumer sites. The devices in proposed system inherit plug & play features and support zero-configuration and seamless networking. Further, the proposed system design is technology-agnostic and flexible enough to be adopted for the implementation of any specific demand side service. This paper also evaluates the proposed system in real-networking environment and presents performance metrics