A study on load control method for home energy management system (H-EMS) considering the human comfort

The effective energy management method will provide the significant advantage to the residential customers under real time pricing plan since it can reduce the electricity charge by controlling the energy consumption according to electricity rate. The earlier studies for load management mainly aim to minimize the electricity charges and peak power but put a less emphasis on the human comfort dwelling in the residence. The discomfort and displeasure from the energy management only focusing on reduction of electricity charge will make the residential customer reluctant to enroll the real time pricing plan. In this paper, therefore, we propose optimal load control strategy which aim to achieve not only minimizing the electricity charges but also maintaining human comfort by introducing the human comfort coefficient. Using the human comfort coefficient, the energy management system can reflect the various human personality and control the loads within the range that the human comfort is maintained. Simulation results show that proposed load control strategy leads to significant reduction in the electricity charges and peak power in comparison with the conventional load management method.