Formal verification of demand response based home energy management systems in smart grids

Demand Response Management System (DRMS) is used in a smart grid to reduce the gap between power generation and its demand. The knowledge of the demand of the customers is very important because failing to fulfill this demand can lead to serious issues, like system failures and blackouts. Home Energy Management System (HEMS) is a DRMS that is designed specially for residential customers. Traditionally, HEMS is analyzed using simulation-based techniques but such an analysis lacks completeness and exhaustiveness. In order to overcome these issues and to account for the numerous random and unpredictable factors in HEMS, we propose to use probabilistic model checking for its analysis. Our formal model is generic in nature and can be used to model most of the existing HEMS. Important results related to the efficiency and total household power are also presented in this paper.