Implementation of home energy management system with optimal load scheduling based on real-time electricity pricing models

In this paper, we implement a complete Home Energy Management System (HEMS) capable of scheduling loads based on real-time electricity pricing information and user-defined priority. Real-time pricing information can provide numerous economic advantages as compared to the conventional flat rate tariffs. It can allow customers to respond to the price changes by increasing or decreasing energy consumption at different times of the day. It also provides a means for utilities to invoke price based demand response. To automate the process of scheduling, we use an embedded platform, namely Raspberry Pi 3 Model B, to firstly solve the optimization problem and consequently turn the loads on and off based on the resulting optimal schedule. In addition, we perform real-time data acquisition to compute the kWh-energy consumption of various loads to improve the accuracy of our optimization algorithm. To demonstrate the efficacy of our proposed HEMS device, we interface it with a test 5V DC bus with numerous loads attached to it.