Complete Energy Management Research Articles

Near-Zero-Energy Building Management Based on Arduino Microcontroller—On-Site Lighting Management Application

Near-Zero-Energy Buildings are a challenge in terms of energy production, storage, consumption and management, but these technological solutions remain financially difficult to access in developing countries. To this end, a complete low-cost and reliable home energy-management prototype was first developed and implemented on a scale model. A PWM charge controller drove the flow of energy produced and consumed in order to ensure the optimization of both the consumption of energy and energy savings. Battery storage was also managed by the home automation module using a set of sensors. The prototype of the scale model incorporated complete energy management of all electrical devices with group priorities through a graphical interface in a real-time mode. After testing this system, the lighting management part was implemented in a large-scale smart solar home. A smart lighting system via a complete algorithm integrated on an Arduino Mega board was then realized and implemented in the life-size house. This first step focuses, above all, on the users’ comfort and, in particular, on the lighting management. The results show that this smart device thus makes it possible to achieve additional energy savings on an essential and yet already energy-efficient device: lighting.

Solar Powered Robotic Vehicle for Optimal Battery Charging Using PIC Microcontroller

This paper focuses on the design and construction of an optimization charging system for Li–Po batteries by means of tracked solar panels. Thus, the implementation of a complete energy management system applied to a robotic exploration vehicle is put forward. The proposed system was tested on the VANTER robotic platform — an autonomous unmanned exploration vehicle specialized in recognition. The interest of this robotic system lies in the design concept, based on a smart host microcontroller. On this basis, our proposal makes a twofold significant contribution. On the one hand, it presents the construction of a solar tracking mechanism aimed at increasing the rover’s power regardless of its mobility. On the other hand, it proposes an alternative design of power system performance based on a pack of two batteries. The aim is completing the process of charging a battery independently while the other battery provides all the energy consumed by the robotic vehicle.

Control of fuzzy logic based PV-battery hybrid system for stand-alone DC applications

The paper presents a hybrid system comprising of photovoltaic (PV) and battery with fuzzy logic control (FLC) to meet the demands of isolated off grid DC loads. Perturb and Observe (P&O) method is used to achieve the maximum power point tracking (MPPT) by controlling the duty cycle of a dc–dc boost converter. Fuzzy logic controller regulates the power flow of the battery by means of a bidirectional buck-boost converter. The complete energy management system has been validated in MATLAB/SIMUINK with variable solar irradiation profile. The simulation results show that the system with fuzzy logic control prolongs the battery lifespan by reducing the battery peak current up to 0.22% and also significantly decreases the settling time and peak overshoot of the DC load voltage up to 16.23% and 14.62% as compared to the system with conventional PID control.

A Smart Load Interface and Voltage Regulator for Electrostatic Vibration Energy Harvester

This paper presents a new implementation in ams 0.35μm HV technology of a complete energy management system for an electrostatic vibrational energy harvester (e-VEH). It is based on the Bennet's doubler architecture and includes a load voltage regulator (LVR) and a smart Load Interface (LI) that are self-controlled with internal voltages for maximum power point tracking (MMPT). The CMOS implementation makes use of an energy harvester that is capable of producing up to 1.8μW at harmonic excitation, given its internal voltage is kept within its optimum. An intermediate LI stage and its controller makes use of a high side switch with zero static power level shifter, and a low power hysteresis comparator. A full circuit level simulation with a VHDL-AMS model of the e-VEH presented was successfully achieved, indicating that the proposed load interface controller consumes less than 100nW average power. Moreover, a LVR regulates the buffer and discharge the harvested energy into a generic resistive load maintaining the voltage within a nominal value of 2 Volts.

A Conformity Check and Optimization of the Energy Management System Based on ISO 50001

The term energy management from the past few years is becoming increasingly important. Not only the trend toward clean energy sources triggered a process of rethinking in the minds of society but also pushed the politics to create incentives for companies in order to make them reduce their carbon footprint. The efficient use of energy can be described as an integral part of current political, social and economic decision making.From a business perspective energy efficient production is no longer just considered under the ecological aspect. Through high taxes, huge energy costs and steadily increasing energy prices, there is for companies in the relatively young field of energy management enormous potential to financially improve and consequently save costs sustainably. Furthermore starting from 2015 the energy peak equalization law is made stricter, requiring companies to pay even more in taxes if they fail to fulfill all the requirements set by the politics.Hence the role of energy management systems (EnMS), which deal with the continuous and systematic improvement of the energy performance of businesses, is becoming increasingly important.This paper will deal with an energy management system that was developed by the Institute for factory automation and production systems at Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nürnberg. The paper audits the proposed concept and checks it for consistency with the international energy management norm ISO 50001. Additionally all the corrections and necessary optimizations are made in order to provide the companies with a complete energy management system.The aim of this paper is to verify and check the EnMS concept which was developed in the institute for factory automation and production systems (FAPS) for its conformity with the International ISO 50001 standard. Thus ensuring the long term certification according to DIN ISO 50001.

A framework for home energy management and its experimental validation

With the Smart Grid revolution and the increasing interest in renewable energy sources, the management of the electricity consumption and production of individual households and small residential communities is becoming an essential element of new power systems. The electric energy chain can greatly benefit from a flexible interaction with end-users based on the optimization of load profiles and the exploitation of local generation and energy storage. This paper proposes a framework for the development of a complete energy management system for individual residential units and small communities of domestic users, taking into account both the power system and the final users’ perspectives. All the main elements of the framework are considered, and contributions are provided on the users’ habits profiling, electricity generation forecast, energy load, and storage optimization. Specifically, we propose a linear regression model to predict the photovoltaic panels production, a stochastic method to forecast the home appliances usage, and two optimization models to optimize the electricity management of residential users with the goal of minimizing their bills. The study shows that it is possible to reduce the energy bill of residential users through the electricity optimization driven by dynamic energy prices. Moreover, remarkable improvements of the electric grid efficiency can be achieved with the cooperation among users, confirming that services for the coordination of the demand of groups of users allow huge benefits on the power system performance.

Smart Host Microcontroller for Optimal Battery Charging in a Solar-Powered Robotic Vehicle

This paper focuses on the design and construction of an optimization charging system for Li-Po batteries by means of tracked solar panels. Thus, the implementation of a complete energy management system applied to a robotic exploration vehicle is put forward. The proposed system was tested on the VANTER robotic platform-an autonomous unmanned exploration vehicle specialized in recognition. The interest of this robotic system lies in the design concept, based on a smart host microcontroller. On this basis, our proposal makes a twofold significant contribution. On the one hand, it presents the construction of a solar tracking mechanism aimed at increasing the rover's power regardless of its mobility. On the other hand, it proposes an alternative design of power system performance based on a pack of two batteries. The aim is completing the process of charging a battery independently while the other battery provides all the energy consumed by the robotic vehicle.

Application of EMS based Simulation for Potential of Energy Saving during the Cooling Season

In life cycle cost (LCC), the cost during the operation period is 5 ~ 6 times higher than the initial investment. The energy consumption of architectural environment system accounts for the most proportion in LCC and can be efficiently reduced mostly realized through Energy Management System(EMS). The purpose of this study is to develop EMS and to verify the proposed model by applying energy management technique in a real campus building. In this study, the influence of the building control(blind and dimming) and system control(HVAC) strategies in energy consumption and the energy saving potentials of the whole building energy have been investigated by means of simulations. Furthermore, it is programed to show information of control strategies to achieve EMS. EnergyPlus runtime language(Erl) is used to specify control algorithms and complete energy management. With building control and system control, whole building energy consumption of the target building is reduced by about 46.0%.

Behaviour, attitudes and opinion of large enterprise employees with regard to their energy usage habits and adoption of energy saving measures

Occupants’ behaviour is one of the important aspects in diminishing energy waste. It is imperative that working environments should provide comfort to occupants and at the same time, they should also be in line with energy saving practices. The present study aims in investigating energy usage habits of a large enterprise employees in Cyprus, in evaluating their perception on consumption on various energy saving measures and finally, in statistically analyzing their behaviour, attitudes and opinion on energy usage and energy saving measures. Furthermore, the decisions taken by the upper management and its role on energy management is presented and analysed. To achieve the above aims, a detailed questionnaire was designed. Results showed that the majority of employees acknowledge that there is energy waste and that, in theory, they would be open to energy saving measures. They tend to believe that a complete energy management system must be applied, but when they were asked specifically about temperature control, they prefer individual control. Thus, they are not willing to sacrifice their own personal satisfaction for these measures. Furthermore, statistical analysis showed that employees sharing an office and have either less than 10 or more than 20 years of employment are the most dissatisfied about room temperature and thus, they would pose a difficulty in accepting energy saving measures. Finally, the upper management lacks in the promotion of energy saving measures, and this also contributes negatively in the employees’ behaviour.

Direct load control using a programmable logic controller

This paper presents a fully automated programmable logic controller (PLC) based direct load control system. Unlike other existing systems, it gives the consumer the privilege to share in the load shedding policy. After receiving the warning alarm from the PC at the utility control center, the consumer has the chance to switch off any desired load. If he does not act within a predefined period, the PLC will take the required action based on the scenario decided by the utility. Having the consumer decide his own priorities release the utility company from blind decisions. This is one of the most important contributions of the proposed system. Also the load restoration process is scheduled to avoid the creation of a new peak during re-energization. This is done using 48 built-in timers with an accuracy of less than one cycle (10 ms). The hardware at the customer side may be integrated with a digital energy meter to form a complete energy management system.