Characterizing quality of experience for demand management in South Brazil

Abstract

The present work delivers the results of a survey conducted in the southern region of Brazil, using a digital questionnaire that inquired about the interaction with residential demand management systems (DMSs). Demand-side management is a very important strategy that can be used to improve the stability of the energy grid acting in different time scales and control levels, as well as, flatten the demand curve. In particular, the survey addressed the interviewees’ thoughts on demand management and gathered data to enable the design of Quality of Experience (QoE) based demand management policies. The investigation of QoE-aware approaches is significant as it enables the DMS to take decisions not only based on economic metrics, but also taking the discomfort caused to the users into account. The survey considered three different DM policies assuming that the loads can be sheddable, dimmerizable, or time-flexible.The number of responses guaranteed a confidence level of 95% and an error margin of 4.63%, and the content of such responses showed favorable disposition of the interviewees on allowing interventions of DMSs on their energy consumption habits as long as it reduces their expenses with energy. The data concerning discomfort caused by demand management actions on several home appliances was treated using clustering techniques and different typical user profiles were leveraged, represented by the centroid of each cluster. Those profiles can be used to deploy QoE-aware DMSs tailored for the local reality, which seem like a promising business model as smart houses become a reality. The results of this survey and their promising applicability in DMSs are presented and discussed.11The authors thank CNPq for projects 401126/2014-5, 303702/2011-7 and 305785/2015-0.