Implementing Demand Response Using Smart Home IoT Devices

Households and buildings became smarter due to IoT devices and as a result home and building automation solutions are operational almost everywhere. The proliferation of renewable distributed energy resources (DER), despite having a positive impact on the carbon footprint, created important operational problems for power systems. The intermittent nature of DER does not only make them unsuitable for controlling the grid but contributes to its instability. In order to accommodate more renewables into the grid there is a real need to increase its flexibility and therefore maintain its stability. Historically, balancing services and technological ancillary systems have been provided mainly by thermal and gas fired power plants, having an obvious negative impact on the carbon footprint. A possible alternative to ensure balancing and regulation might be the extensive use of demand response (DR) measures. The access to aggregated energy data acquired from a large number of households or office buildings enables the implementation of DR based on the intrinsic capabilities of the connected smart home devices, like power monitoring smart switches or plugs. After reviewing the existing situation in Europe related to DR measures and some information concerning the use of technologies like blockchain in the energy sector, this paper will present the concept of a smart home electric energy data aggregation platform (SHEEDAP), to be applied as a new type of power grid flexibility provider. As a novelty, the platform will use sub-metering devices from the smart home environment in order to perform DR actions.