There is, I think, something ethereal about i —the square root of minus one. I remember first hearing about it at school. It seemed an odd beast at that time—an intruder hovering on the edge of reality.

Usually familiarity dulls this sense of the bizarre, but in the case of i it was the reverse: over the years the sense of its surreal nature intensified. It seemed that it was impossible to write mathematics that described the real world in …

I and i

Towards sustainable smart cities: A review of trends, architectures, components, and open challenges in smart cities

A home energy management (HEM) system is an integral part of a smart grid that can potentially enable demand response applications for residential customers. This paper presents an intelligent HEM algorithm for managing high power consumption household appliances with simulation for demand response (DR) analysis. The proposed algorithm manages household loads according to their preset priority and guarantees the total household power consumption below certain levels. A simulation tool is developed to showcase the applicability of the proposed algorithm in performing DR at an appliance level. This paper demonstrates that the tool can be used to analyze DR potentials for residential customers. Given the lack of understanding about DR potentials in this market, this work serves as an essential stepping-stone toward providing an insight into how much DR can be performed for residential customers.

An Algorithm for Intelligent Home Energy Management and Demand Response Analysis

With the arrival of smart grid era and the advent of advanced communication and information infrastructures, bidirectional communication, advanced metering infrastructure, energy storage systems and home area networks would revolutionize the patterns of electricity usage and energy conservation at the consumption premises. Coupled with the emergence of vehicle-to-grid technologies and massive distributed renewable energy, there is a profound transition for the energy management pattern from the conventional centralized infrastructure towards the autonomous responsive demand and cyber-physical energy systems with renewable and stored energy sources. Under the sustainable smart grid paradigm, the smart house with its home energy management system (HEMS) plays an important role to improve the efficiency, economics, reliability, and energy conservation for distribution systems. In this paper, a brief overview on the architecture and functional modules of smart HEMS is presented. Then, the advanced HEMS infrastructures and home appliances in smart houses are thoroughly analyzed and reviewed. Furthermore, the utilization of various building renewable energy resources in HEMS, including solar, wind, biomass and geothermal energies, is surveyed. Lastly, various home appliance scheduling strategies to reduce the residential electricity cost and improve the energy efficiency from power generation utilities are also investigated.

Smart home energy management systems: Concept, configurations, and scheduling strategies

A survey on smart grid technologies and applications

This paper describes smart home energy management system (HEMS) that includes both energy consumption and renewable energy generation. ZigBee is used to measure and transfer the power and energy of home appliances at the outlets and the lights. Power line communication is adopted to monitor solar panels. By considering both energy consumption and generation simultaneously, the proposed HEMS can optimize home energy use and result in energy cost saving.

Smart home energy management system including renewable energy based on ZigBee and PLC

This paper describes more efficient home energy management system to reduce power consumption in home area. We consider the room easily controllable with an IR remote control of a home device. The room has automatic standby power cut-off outlets, a light, and a ZigBee hub. The ZigBee hub has an IR code learning function and educates the IR remote control signal of a home device connected to the power outlet. Then the power outlets and the light in the room can be controlled with an IR remote control. A typical automatic standby power cut-off outlet has a waiting time before cutting off the electric power. It consumes standby power during that time. To eliminate the waiting time, we turn off the home device and the power outlet simultaneously with an IR remote control through the ZigBee hub. This method actively reduces the standby power. The proposed HEMS provides easy way to add, delete, and move home devices to other power outlets. When a home device is moved to the different outlet, the energy information of the home device is kept consistently and seamlessly regardless of location change. The proposed architecture gives more efficient energy-saving HEMS.

More efficient home energy management system based on ZigBee communication and infrared remote controls

This paper proposes remote-controllable and energy-saving room architecture to reduce standby power consumption and to make the room easily controllable with an IR remote control of a home appliance. To realize the proposed room architecture, we proposed and designed the automatic standby power cut-off outlet and a ZigBee controller with IR code learning functionality. The proposed power outlet monitors the power consumption for the predetermined time and completely cuts off the power supply when the monitored power is below the threshold. This power outlet has a function of changing the threshold power, which enables any kinds of home appliances to be applied to the power outlet. To efficiently manage the power outlets and the lights, we proposed the ZigBee controller with IR code learning functionality. The ZigBee controller has several onboard buttons to wake up the power outlets and control the dimming light. By using IR code learning functionality, the ZigBee controller can assign a certain IR code of a remote control of a home appliance to the power outlet or the dimming light. A user can control the power outlets and the dimming light with an IR remote control of any home appliance. Our proposed room architecture provides the remote-controllable and energy-saving room.

Remote-controllable and energy-saving room architecture based on ZigBee communication

Home Energy Management System (HEMS) is a technology to reduce and manage home energy use. The feedback on energy consumption to energy users is known to be effective to reduce total energy use. A typical HEMS just shows the energy consumption of the whole home and home appliances. Users cannot figure out how efficient a home appliance is, compared to the others. So it is necessary to compare the energy usage of home appliances to that of the same kinds of home appliances. In this paper, we propose a green HEMS based on energy comparison.

Green Home Energy Management System through comparison of energy usage between the same kinds of home appliances

Provided are an apparatus and method for controlling home appliances using zigbee wireless communication. The apparatus, includes: a memory for storing a control profile and an operation program, and operating the stored operation program; a display means for supporting interface with a user; a display input/output control means for controlling input/output of the display means; a first wireless network interface for transmitting/receiving wireless data to/from home appliances based on zigbee wireless communication; and a control means for forming Wireless Personal Area Network (WPAN) with the home appliances based on the first wireless network interface, displaying a list of controllable home appliances based on device product information transferred from the home appliances through the WPAN, reading a control profile in the memory upon home appliances control request of the user, and transferring the control profile through the first wireless network interface.

Jinsoo Han

Papers

Smart home energy management system including renewable energy based on ZigBee and PLC

More efficient home energy management system based on ZigBee communication and infrared remote controls

Remote-controllable and energy-saving room architecture based on ZigBee communication

Green Home Energy Management System through comparison of energy usage between the same kinds of home appliances

Apparatus and method for controlling home appliances using zigbee wireless communication