User Comfort-Oriented Home Energy Management System Under Demand Response

Home Energy Management Systems (HEMS) play a crucial role in empowering residential consumers to actively engage in Demand Response (DR) programs by controlling their consumption and reducing or shifting their consumption outside periods of grid stress in response to financial rewards such as tax breaks or rebates. However, DR trials across the world have shown that most of the customers remain reluctant to enroll into these programs due to undesirable power disruptions and strict guidelines imposed by utilities, resulting in inconvenience for users. In this paper, a human comfort-based control approach is proposed for HEMS to stimulate the active participation of residential customers in DR. The aim of this proposed algorithm is to minimize the household load demands by scheduling the operation of household appliances and shifting controllable loads during periods when electricity prices are high, to off-peak periods, when electricity prices are lower without compromising the customer’s preferences. The simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed DR strategy in managing the daily household energy consumption and improving the occupants’ comfort.