Hierarchical Energy Management Strategy for a Community of Multi Smart Homes

In this paper, a hierarchical energy management strategy for a community of multiple smart homes is proposed. This strategy reduces the stress on the power grid caused by uncoordinated energy scheduling of smart homes. Different stochastic operational conditions for plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) and household battery storages are considered. First, cost-effective day-ahead energy schedules under these operational conditions are calculated by individual home energy management systems (HEMSs). Then, a centralized decision making unit determines the day-ahead schedule for each household with the aim of reducing the stress on the grid. Comprehensive results obtained from simulations show that the proposed hierarchical energy management strategy not only maintains a low energy purchase cost for each individual household, but also smooths the overall grid power profile requested by all smart homes combined.