Evaluation of Demand-Side Management Application Based on Human Activity Schedules

Demand-side management (DSM) is one of the main applications for a community energy management in the smart grid. It can control and manage energy on the demand side, e.g., electricity consumption. Various DSM scheduling algorithms have been developed and have reported good evaluation results using simulation. However, in order to develop a practical DSM application, the effects of human activity scheduling must be further investigated. This paper demonstrates evaluating a DSM application which takes into account human activity schedule information. First, schedules regarding home appliance usage are extracted from daily activity schedule information. Then, based on the obtained schedules, user preferences of appliance usage time intervals and a community electricity consumption schedule are computed. Finally, after applying user preferences and the consumption schedule, optimal appliance schedules are determined. Evaluation results show the reduction of energy costs, which translates into savings on the user electricity bills.