Appliance simulation models for the evaluation of energy management policies

A home energy management system is a system in a house that assists consumers in monitoring and optimizing electricity usage in order to lower electricity costs while maintaining consumers’ comfort. One approach to achieve this is by using energy management policies to schedule appliance activities at the appropriate time. A policy is a set of rules defining the events and the corresponding actions to reach goals. Simulations are needed to validate the policies. The SMASH (SiMulated Adaptable Smart Home) simulation platform has been developed at the Department of Telematics at NTNU. It is a model of the real adaptable smart home. It consists of entity energy models for various physical appliances. There are different types of simulation results such as cumulative energy consumption, cumulative electricity costs, and peak power. The feasibility and effectiveness of the policies can be validated. The platform developed so far only contains two energy entity models. Additional models and policies are needed to simulate the use of many policies targeting different appliances simultaneously. This project aims at developing at least two entity energy models and policies making use of the models. The models must include detailed energy consumption estimation during all the defined operations of the appliances. The tasks within this project includes 1) study how the platform works, 2) design entity energy models compatible with the platform, 3) create policies that use the designed models, 4) create case studies that combine the models and the policies, 5) implement the case studies and collect results, 6) analyze the results and evaluate the policies.