An efficient home energy management system based on Automatic Meter Reading

Because of increased power consumption and exhausted natural resources, more and more energy policies as well as R&D projects have been in progress in several countries. But most of them seem to be in the beginning or no business. It is due to their unreality, inefficiency or complexity. In this paper, we focus especially on the home energy consumption, and propose a simple and effective scheme so as to reduce the waste of power in the home. Home energy management system (HEMS) which we developed adopts plain energy management mechanism, so it can be realized more easily. It requires user's minimal decision and action for correct judgment. It also uses Automatic Meter Reading (AMR) network based on powerline communication (PLC). We installed and verified HEMS in the real customers' houses, and got meaningful result for saving energy - significant power reduction.