An Artificial Immune Network for Distributed Demand-Side Management in Smart Grids

In this work we present a Distributed Demand-Side Management system based on the Artificial Immune Network algorithm. It implements an intelligent, distributed and autonomous control of the customer's Air Conditioning devices in order to meet the desired demand. The system is particularly adapted to tackle the Peak Load problem that appears in Tropical and Subtropical climates due to the use of thousands of these devices at the same time. The design follows the guidelines set by the Smart Grid paradigm, in the sense that it is fault tolerant, distributed and self-controlled. It requires minimal communication infrastructure when compared to a centralized system. The algorithm was evaluated using synthetic and real data. We define Maximal and Average Tolerance as performance metrics, and show that the system keeps the consumption within 1% of the given load limit in all 5 cases. (C) 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.