Smart charging and appliance scheduling approaches to demand side management

• The research proposed an autonomous smart charging framework for achieving consumer savings.
• The proposed demand side management scheme incorporates both appliance scheduling and energy storage.
• The concept of load clustering is introduced for grouping the loads within the same time period.

Various forms of demand side management (DSM) programs are being deployed by utility companies for load flattening amongst the residential power users. These programs are tailored to offer monetary incentives to electricity customers so that they voluntarily consume electricity in an efficient way. Thus, DSM presents households with numerous opportunities to lower their electricity bills. However, systems that combine the various DSM strategies with a view to maximizing energy management benefits have not received sufficient attention. This study therefore proposes an intelligent energy management framework that can be used to implement both energy storage and appliance scheduling schemes. By adopting appliance scheduling, customers can realize cost savings by appropriately scheduling their power consumption during the low peak hours. More savings could further be achieved through smart electricity storage. Power storage allows electricity consumers to purchase power during off-peak hours when electricity prices are low and satisfy their demands when prices are high by discharging the batteries. For optimal cost savings, the customers must constantly monitor the price fluctuations in order to determine when to switch between the utility grid and the electricity storage devices. However, with a high penetration of consumer owned storage devices, the charging of the batteries must be properly coordinated and appropriately scheduled to avoid creating new peaks. This paper therefore proposes an autonomous smart charging framework that ensures both the stability of the power grid and customer savings.