A Trustworthy Building Energy Management System to Enable Direct IoT Devices’ Participation in Demand Response Programs

Abstract

Nowadays, internet of things devices are becoming more prominent since they can integrate energy management systems. However, data sharing between end-users and other external entities is a concern that must be addressed to ensure data privacy. Given the above, this paper proposes a trustworthy energy management system for energy communities to enable direct internet of things devices’ participation in demand response programs at the community level. This solution is based on a building energy management system framework that considers signed tokens to maintain end-user data privacy and manage data access. Likewise, this solution can plan future demand response events to balance the consumption and generation, using the internet of things device’s flexibility. The results demonstrated that the planned demand response event for one hour efficiently balanced the energy community energy resources, enabling a reduction of approximately 2.8 kWh. Thus, the proposed solution allows safeguarding data ownership rights while efficiently managing energy resources.