Development of IOT-based Smart Home Model for Monitoring and Scheduling Loads

In recent years, the home energy management system (HEMS) has gained attention among residential consumers. The paper presents an implementation of HEMS using a quad smart switch to carry out Demand Side Management (DSM) with the objective of reducing the electricity consumption cost. The HEMS algorithm is developed to manage the schedulable loads (SLs) considering the Time-of-Use (ToU) tariff and the load operational time preferred by the user. Besides, the consumers are given access to remotely control the non-schedulable loads (NSL) via the Blynk application through an online device. A laboratory-scale experimental setup is developed using a four-channel relay and ESP8266 to demonstrate the HEMS of a residential consumer. It is noticed that the wider preferred intervals of SLs offer greater flexibility in load scheduling and, consequently, more savings. The analysis showed 12-13% of savings, and the HEMS model provides significant economic and comfort benefits at the consumer end. Furthermore, the Peak-to-Average Ratio (PAR) has decreased from 4.258 to 2.709, which is crucial for the utility.