Towards the Real-World Deployment of a Smart Home EMS: A DP Implementation on the Raspberry Pi

Abstract

As the adoption of distributed generation and energy storage grows and the attention to energy efficiency rises, Energy Management is assuming a growing importance in smart homes. Energy Management Systems (EMSs) should be easily deployable on smart homes and seamlessly integrate with the Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystem, including generators and storage devices. This paper redesigns a previously presented EMS to reduce its computational complexity, implement it on a Raspberry Pi, and make it compatible with the IoT paradigm. The EMS manages the power flows between smart home loads, renewable generators, electrical storage, and power grid. It communicates with a network of wireless sensors for electrical appliances and with a cloud-based utility data aggregator. The EMS uses Artificial Intelligence and a Dynamic Programming algorithm to fulfill two objectives at the same time: lowering the end user’s electricity bill and reducing the uncertainty on the power exchanged between the end user and the grid manager. The latter goal is obtained by an effective compensation of forecasting errors. A test bench emulating four smart homes was used to measure the effectiveness of the EMS and the efficiency of the proposed implementation. The results show an uncertainty of the aggregated exchanged power of only 2.88% and a reduction of the electrical bill for end-users of up to 3.23%. Furthermore, the EMS can complete its most onerous task in less than 9 min. The good performance of the proposed EMS makes it a candidate for fast adoption by the market.