The Use of a Device to Limit the Electric Consumption of a Given Appliance

Algorithms for robust production scheduling with energy consumption limits

István Módos Přemysl Šůcha Zdeněk Hanzálek

In this work, we consider a scheduling problem faced by production companies with large
electricity consumption. Due to the contract with the electric utility, the production
companies are obligated to comply with the total energy consumption limits in the specified
time intervals (usually 15-min long); otherwise, the companies pay substantial penalty fees.
Although it is possible to design production schedules that consider these limits as hard
constraints, uncertainties occurring during the execution of the schedules are usually not
taken into account. This may lead to situations in which the unexpected delays of the
operations cause the violations of the energy consumption limits. Our goal is to design robust
production schedules pro-actively guaranteeing that the energy consumption limits are not
violated for the given set of uncertainty scenarios. We consider scheduling on one machine
with release times of the operations and total tardiness as the objective function.

To tackle this problem, we first propose a pseudo-polynomial algorithm for finding the
optimal robust schedule for the given permutation of the operations. This algorithm is then
utilised in three different algorithms for finding the optimal permutation: two exact (Branch-
and-Bound and logic-based Benders decomposition) and one heuristic algorithm (tabu
search). All the algorithms were experimentally evaluated on random instances with different
sizes of the uncertainty scenarios set. Using the tabu search algorithm, we are able to solve
large instances within one minute.

A simulation and control model for building energy management

Maria Pia Fanti Agostino Marcello Mangini Michele Roccotelli

This paper deals with the energy consumption management problem in buildings by
modelling and controlling the main electric appliances. Renewable energies are taken into
account by considering the production schedules of both wind and solar sources. Each
appliance is described by modular mathematical models by means of the Matlab/Simulink
software. A simulator is designed that models the load energy consumptions and helps to
recognize how they contribute to peak demand. Moreover, a controller to manage the load
usage is designed in a Petri Net framework. In the proposed control strategy, the comfort
conditions are respected for each appliances on the basis of the user preferences. Finally, a
real case study validates and tests the effectiveness of the simulator applied to the considered
appliances.
Optimal scheduling of household appliances with a battery storage system and coordination
Ditiro Setlhaolo Xiaohua Xia

This paper demonstrates an optimal household appliance scheduling problem with a battery
as an energy storage system under time of use electricity tariff. Power consumption
measurements of individual appliances considered were performed and demand profiles were
obtained. In this work, a mixed integer nonlinear programming mathematical model with
more practical operation constraints for appliance and battery scheduling is formulated and
solved. The simulation results show effectiveness of the algorithm in that by optimally
scheduling appliances and battery, cost saving, peak shaving and valley filling are achieved
through load shifting. The energy cost saving that might be beneficial to consumers; and peak
shaving and valley filling, which are of great importance to the utility. It is found that
consideration of appliance coordination yields smaller cost saving because of interdependent
operation. Without the battery and coordination, a cost saving of 22% and peak reduction
from 10.355 kW to 8.405 kW are realized. Consideration of appliance coordination gives a
further cost saving of 1% and a relatively smaller peak reduction to 8.30 kW. The battery
bank system promotes peak shaving and valley filling and a further cost saving of about 6%
and peak reduction to 5.175 kW. Sensitivity analysis, however, reveals that the energy cost
saving is sensitive to consumer's willingness to pay.

Implementing peak load reduction algorithms for household electrical appliances

Ndumiso G.Dlaminia FabienCromieresb

Considering household appliance automation for reduction of household peak power demand,
this study explored aspects of the interaction between household automation technology and
human behaviour. Given a programmable household appliance switching system, and user-
reported appliance use times, we simulated the load reduction effectiveness of three types of
algorithms, which were applied at both the single household level and across all 30
households. All three algorithms effected significant load reductions, while the least-to-
highest potential user inconvenience ranking was: coordinating the timing of frequent
intermittent loads (algorithm 2); moving period-of-day time-flexible loads to off-peak times
(algorithm 1); and applying short-term time delays to avoid high peaks (algorithm 3) (least
accommodating). Peak reduction was facilitated by load interruptibility, time of use
flexibility and the willingness of users to forgo impulsive appliance use. We conclude that a
general factor determining the ability to shift the load due to a particular appliance is the
time-buffering between the service delivered and the power demand of an appliance. Time-
buffering can be ‘technologically inherent’, due to human habits, or realised by managing
user expectations. There are implications for the design of appliances and home automation
systems.
Modern development of an Adaptive Non-Intrusive Appliance Load Monitoring system in
electricity energy conservation
Men-Shen Tsaia Yu-Hsiu Linb

Traditionally, electricity energy consumption of a residence can be monitored through the

watt-hour meter installed at the panel. However, the power consumption of individual
appliances cannot be identified directly. To track and control the energy consumption of each
appliance, many meters are needed. This approach results in high financial costs. To reduce
the installation costs, the Non-Intrusive Appliance Load Monitoring (NIALM) approach was
proposed recently. In this paper, a novel Adaptive Non-Intrusive Appliance Load Monitoring
(ANIALM) system that integrates appliance energizing and de-energizing transient feature
extraction methods with soft-computing techniques is developed to keep track of the energy
consumption of each appliance. The energizing and de-energizing transient responses of
appliances can be captured through the analyses of ANIALM. Two recognizers, k-Nearest
Neighbor Rule (k-NNR) and Back-Propagation Artificial Neural Network (BP-ANN), are
used to identify different types of appliances and their operation status under different single-
load and multiple-load operation scenarios. The Artificial Immune Algorithm (AIA) with the
Fisher criterion is employed to adaptively adjust the feature parameters in order to improve
the identification performance of recognizers when a new type of appliance is added for
monitoring. From the experimental results obtained in different actual environments, the
proposed ANIALM system is confirmed that it is able to identify the operation status of
appliances. Also, although the generalization of both recognizers is similar and excellent, the
k-NNR recognizer used by the ANIALM system is preferred from the aspects of recognizers’
identification mechanism and training performance due to its simplicity in computation and
implementation.