New real-time demand-side management approach for energy management systems

This study proposes a new demand-side management (DSM) technique, which is characterised by low computational requirements. The proposed technique relies on developing an operational matrix by the device local controller based on the device characteristics and the customer preferences. This matrix is sent to the energy management system (EMS) without the need to send any further information about the device or the customer preferences; then, the EMS chooses the optimal schedule for the device. To demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed DSM technique, it is incorporated in an EMS that consists of three units controlled by a centralised microgrid controller (MGC). The three units managed by the MGC are the data collection and storage engine, the forecasting engine, and the optimisation engine. The EMS utilises the rolling horizon concept to manage real-time information and to provide the plug-and-play option for all controllable devices. Simulation results on a typical microgrid system show that the proposed DSM technique outperforms conventional DSM approaches in terms of the computational time.