An energy management framework for a smart home: optimal appliances scheduling and operational planning of renewable energy resources

Within the next years, energy demand at the residential sector has been increased as a result of economic developments. On the other hand, intelligent and programmable household appliances and smart metering have been widely used. This paper proposes an energy management system for residential consumer to minimize its electricity cost. A framework is presented to determine i) the optimal operation and scheduling of household appliances; ii) charging/discharging cycles of battery storage and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles; and iii) optimal operation of distributed resources renewable (small wind turbines and photoVoltaic systems). The smart home is connected to the grid and the power consumption can be balanced by exchanging the electricity between them at real time pricing. The problem is formulated as a mixed integer linear programming (MILP) and solved by commercial software (GAMS). A realistic case study is presented to verify the efficiency and usefulness of the developed models.