Smart Home Energy Management System

Introduction

Due to the ever-growing demand of electrical energy, the percentage of renewable energy generation is greatly raised along with the increased energy prices. Various environmental constraints also posed a limit on energy generation from conventional energy sources (Khomami and Javidi, 2013). All these challenges motivated power industry to shift their focus on smart demand side management techniques. Electricity usage report in United States suggests that at least 30% of electric power is wasted from 72% of energy consumed by residential and commercial users (Geng and Lu, 2016). In Europe, as target by 2020, 20% share of renewable energy production and 20% of energy efficiency have been fixed to be met. The advancement of information and communication technologies (ICTs) increased the demand of reliable and quality power supply (Zhao et al., 2013; Khan et al., 2019; Khan et al., 2018; Khan et al., 2017; Banteywalu et al., 2019; Anteneh et al., 2019; Molla et al., 2019, Molla et al., 2018, Jariso et al. 2018). These ICTs are important part of smart grid system that transfers information from one system to another one. This information transfer is very helpful to control and coordinate various smart grid technologies to respond immediately under varying demand conditions. Smart grids can use local renewable energies like wind and solar energy to solve environmental problems, increase reliability of equipment and system and reduce the costs of infrastructure (Dogaheh and Dogaheh, 2017). Further to control the demand from consumer premises, these ICT systems are very helpful. These are the integral part of smart home appliances energy management system, which is one aspect of smart grid (Mohammadi et al., 2013).

Today, the concept of micro-grid is being used for the purpose of helping the environment through using several renewable and available resources such as wind and solar energy, along with other energy generators such as micro-turbines and fuel cells to reduce generation costs and reduce environmental pollutions. The resources are not only interrelated, but also the interaction continues in higher levels such as distribution networks (Alhelou et al., 2019; Makdisie et al., 2018; Alhelou et al., 2018; Alhelou et al., 2016; Haes Alhelou et al., 2019; Njenda et al., 2018). Restriction of fossil fuels and increasing growth of demand for energy, enhanced living standards, global warming and environmental problems have led to increasing advancements in technology and use of modern and cleaner energies. The idea of smart grid was begun with the idea of Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) to develop demand side management, increase energy efficiency and a self-healing electric grid, so that it could improve reliability and respond to natural disasters or deliberate sabotage (Dogaheh and Dogaheh, 2017). Advancement of smart grid system allows consumers to reduce their energy consumption through proper scheduling of different appliances (Khan et al., 2014; Khan et al., 2013; Khan et al., 2012; Negash et al., 2017; Negash et al., 2016; Jariso et al., 2017; Kifle et al., 2018; Yeshalem et al., 2017; Singh et al., 2017; Gupta et al., 2015). This is possible with the information of different electricity pricing techniques such as real time electricity pricing (RTEP) and time of use pricing (TOUP). The demand side management (DSM) techniques are very old in power system that incorporates DR techniques with load shifting, energy efficiency and conservation program. Shifting of consumers’ load from peak hours to off peak hours is the main function of DR techniques. For that purpose incentives are offered to consumers.