A Residential House Comparative Case Study Using Market Available Smart Plugs and EnAPlugs with Shared Knowledge

• Main Authors: Luis Gomes, Filipe Sousa, Tiago Pinto, Zita Vale
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2019-04-01
• Series: Energies
• Subjects: distributed optimization; energy management system; shared knowledge; smart plugs
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/12/9/1647

Smart home devices currently available on the market can be used for remote monitoring and control. Energy management systems can take advantage of this and deploy solutions that can be implemented in our homes. One of the big enablers is smart plugs that allow the control of electrical resources while providing a retrofitting solution, hence avoiding the need for replacing the electrical devices. However, current so-called smart plugs lack the ability to understand the environment they are in, or the electrical appliance/resource they are controlling. This paper applies environment awareness smart plugs (EnAPlugs) able to provide enough data for energy management systems or act on its own, via a multi-agent approach. A case study is presented, which shows the application of the proposed approach in a house where 17 EnAPlugs are deployed. Results show the ability to shared knowledge and perform individual resource optimizations. This paper evidences that by integrating artificial intelligence on devices, energy advantages can be observed and used in favor of users, providing comfort and savings.