Advanced Smart House

Since the Great East Japan Earthquake, many people have been worried about power shortages in Japan. There has been more focuses to save electricity at home. The method that reduce energy usage is required but it should not give the trouble to peoples. The spread of PV(Photovoltaic) will be expanded by the surplus power buyback institution, and Smart House with HEMS are expected to save electricity. Therefore, studies and verification tests of smart house are very effective. The stand-alone capability in the conventional PV system does not work well in a disaster. The reason is that conventional stand-alone capability is needed to switch by manual when switching to stand-alone mode and it is only able to supply power to the limited plugs. In addition, transfer from standalone mode to grid-connected mode is needed to switch by manual, similarly. It needs a comfortable and safe stand-alone capability of PV for residents that has installed PV system during disaster like typhoons and earthquakes. This paper describes a disaster prevention and energy management of smart house. The effectiveness of the proposed smart house is verified by computer simulations on Matlab/SimPower systems^® environment.