Design and Performance Evaluation of a Home Energy Management System for Power Saving

Abstract

In the context of the ongoing global warming, with environmental concerns regarding the greenhouse gas emissions due to our increasing energy consumption, smart energy management solutions have gained popularity as they have the potential to reduce our impact on the environment and also on our budgets. This paper proposes one of the most affordable designs for an autonomous, microcontroller-based demand-side energy management system to be installed in a home environment where it reduces the standby power consumed by the controlled devices. As a secondary function, it monitors and controls the lights to further save energy. The proposed system is designed to operate independently and also to limit the new wireless sources of electro-magnetic radiation introduced in the home environment. Six homes have been analyzed in terms of the measured energy consumption and to evaluate the energy management capabilities of the system, a prototype was built and tested. Promising results have been obtained and are detailed in the Results and Conclusion sections. A very low purchase price and good performance make this design a viable solution for intelligent home energy management, in today’s economic context.

Keywords

• energy consumption
• power saving
• intelligent energy management
• standby power
• electromagnetic radiation
• microcontroller