A Smart Energy Platform for the Internet of Things - Motivation, Challenges, and Solution Proposal

The increasing number of smart appliances equipped with sensors, actuators and tags connected to the Internet and their ability to communicate with one another forms the basis for an Internet of Things (IoT). The data recorded by smart appliances can be utilized to detect energy savings potential and to increase energy efficiency in households. Despite these possibilities, value-added services which successfully incentivize customers to save energy are missing or are still immature. In this paper, we propose a solution for a smart energy platform that aims at reducing this gap by providing the infrastructure and tools which enable the integration of smart appliances and the development of value-added services for an automated energy management in households. In this context, we give an overview of the main challenges for IoT platforms in general and show that existing solutions currently do not fully meet them.