Demand-side load management in smart homes

Studies have shown that buildings consumer over 75% of the total electricity and over 45% of the total energy usage in many countries. Given rising energy prices and climate change, energy efficiency techniques that reduce the energy and carbon footprint of buildings is an important societal need. In this talk, I will argue that Information and Communication technologies (ICT) are a crucial component for achieving energy efficiency in smart buildings. I will describe demand-side load management techniques where users or intelligent building components take an active role in reducing and optimizing a building's energy footprint and also present present hurdles in achieving energy-efficiency through these methods. Finally, I will describe two of our recent efforts in demand-side load management via peak load shaving. Our first effort focuses on background load scheduling and coordination to transparently reduce peak electricity load without any change in user behavior, while our second technique uses small batteries and any available local renewable sources to shift supply to demand, rather than conventional techniques that adjust demand based on supply.