Towards Optimal Planning and Scheduling in Smart Homes

Abstract

This research addresses the planning and scheduling problem in and among the smart homes in a community microgrid. We develop a bi-linear algorithm, named ECO-Trade to generate the near-optimal schedules of the households’ loads, storage and energy sources. The algorithm also facilitates Peer-to-Peer (P2P) energy trading among the smart homes in a community microgrid. However, P2P trading potentially results in an unfair cost distribution among the participating households. To the best of our knowledge, the ECO-Trade algorithm is the first near-optimal cost optimization algorithm which considers the unfair cost distribution problem for a Demand Side Management (DSM) system coordinated with P2P energy trading. It also solves the time complexity problem of our previously proposed optimal model. Our results show that the solution time of the ECO-Trade algorithm is mostly less than a minute. It also shows that 97% of the solutions generated by the ECO-Trade algorithm are optimal solutions. Furthermore, we analyze the solutions and identify that the algorithm sometimes gets trapped at a local minimum because it alternately sets the microgrid price and quantity as constants. Finally, we describe the reasons of the cost increase by a local minimum and analyze its impact on cost optimization.