A New Framework of Demand Response for Household Customers Based on Advanced Metering Infrastructure Under Smart Grids

This article presents a new approach to the energy efficiency of households based on smart grid technologies applied to the existing power grid. The idea is to make the electrical appliances capable of actively responding to the condition of the upstream grid, e.g., the electricity price, which, under market environments, is passed to end-use customers through retailers or load aggregators. This both saves on the electricity bill for customers and improves the energy efficiency of the system as a whole. The key element is advanced metering infrastructure, which performs two main functions: (1) computing the so-called control policy for electrical appliances with anticipated data and (2) real-time control based on the above control policy and actual measurements. By stochastic optimization, the proposed scheme is capable of monitoring the uncertainty related to the electricity consumption in households, e.g., temperature and/or time and quantity demanded, etc. In addition, with the physical model taken into account, the problem can be applied to various appliances, including what were considered critical loads. The proposed scheme was tested in heat, ventilation, and air-conditioning systems; the simulation result showed the effectiveness in comparison with the traditional (on/off) scheme based on thermostats.