Decentralized Demand Response Architecture for Energy Management of Residential Consumers

Due to the current alarming conditions regarding environmental pollution and growing energy crisis, electric vehicles (EVs) are gaining popularity across the world. According to one estimation [1], there will be 20 million EV fleets on the road by 2020 and that the aggregated sale of EVs will rise to 5.9 million. Integration of large number of EVs to the distribution network will pose serious threats in terms of the reliability and stability of the power system. In order to mitigate the adverse effects on the power system, this paper proposes an approach for the management of EV charging along with smart home load management (SHLM) systems by using a water-filling (WF) algorithm. The proposed framework ensures that the instantaneous load at a distribution transformer is restrained below its rated capacity while consumer preferences are taken into account. In the case that the instantaneous demand increases beyond the transformer capacity, the proposed framework allocates a demand restraining limit (DRL) to each home associated with the transformer. The allocation of the DRL is dynamic and based on the consideration of the convenience factor, demand profile and characteristics of the flexible appliances of all the consumers. The performance of the proposed plan is verified by considering a network consisting of a distribution transformer and five homes.