Wireless home energy management system with smart rule-based controller

Despite the increasing utilization of renewable energy resources, such as solar and wind energy, most residential buildings still rely on conventional energy supply by public utility services. Such utility services often use time-of-use energy pricing, which compels residential consumers to reduce their energy usage. This paper presents a wireless home energy management (HEM) system that enables the automatic control of home appliances to reduce energy consumption to assist such energy users. The system consists of multiple smart sockets that measure the energy that is consumed by the connected appliances and are capable of implementing on/off commands. The system includes other support components for supplying data to a central controller, which utilizes a rule-based HEM algorithm. The control rules were designed, such that the lifestyle of the user would be preserved while the energy consumption and daily energy cost were reduced. The experimental results showed that the central controller could effectively receive data and control multiple devices. The system was also found to afford significant reductions of 23.5 kWh and $2.898 in the total daily energy consumption and bill of the considered household setup, respectively. The proposed HEM system promises to be particularly useful for households with a high daily energy consumption.