Demand side management through load shifting in IoT based HEMS: Overview, challenges and opportunities

In smart grid era, demand side management (DSM) plays an indispensable role in development of sustainable cities and societies. This paper presents practical challenges imposed while implementing DSM using load shifting for IoT enabled home energy management systems (HEMS). The main objective of the manuscript is to provide thorough information to the researchers working towards the development of advanced and realistic optimization algorithms for DSM implementation. Here, the issues related to the characterization of home appliances, integration of intermittent renewable energy sources, load categorization, various constraints, dynamic pricing, consumer categorization has been discussed. DSM being a stochastic optimization problem, an extensive survey of different optimization techniques solving the multi-objective energy management problem has been discussed. The DSM implementation issues in distribution network, mainly related to grid constraints, consumer incentives and utility policies are described in detail. This manuscript also provides a deeper insight into challenges, constraints and future opportunities to meet the desired objectives of DSM.