A Novel Generalised Model for Residential Energy Management System

Abstract

Disaggregated data is often used to model the cost-benefit of residential energy management systems. However, obtaining such data is time-intensive and monetarily expensive. This hinders the depth of analysis that can be done on these systems and negatively influences their large-scale uptake. This study proposes a novel generalised model of these systems that uses smart meter load profile data to model their cost-benefit. Using two years of half-hourly electricity consumption data from 5379 households in London, the model was used to examine how sociodemographic, tariff structures, and the choice of operational objectives of these systems, interact to influence their cost-benefit. The results showed that the proposed model produced reliable cost-benefit results within what is normally obtained in literature. The model demonstrated that applying one set of objectives to different customers leads to an inequitable distribution in benefits; rather, an optimal set of objectives for a given customer under a specific tariff structure can be found to produce a more equitable distribution in benefits across all customers. The proposed model is replicable and uses data that can be obtained easily and cheaply from smart meters, making it versatile for large-scale cost-benefit analysis by any electricity retailer.