Enabling applicability of energy saving applications on the appliances of the home environment

Abstract

he management of the energy consumed in households is nowadays recognized as a key issue toward CO 2 emissions reduction and optimal use of natural energy resources. Although significant improvements in appliance electronics have led to products that consume significantly less energy, the more intensive and widespread use of domestic appliances in the past 10 years has resulted in a 2 percent annual increase of the energy consumed by European households [1], with standby devices accounting for 8 percent of total energy consumption.Despite the introduction of governmental initiatives, such as the Energy label activity of the EU [2], aspiring at raising people's awareness about the environmental consequences of the energy consumption problem, the International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that electricity consumption in households will continue to grow by 25 percent from 2010 to 2020 [3].The energy reservation concept presented in this article offers an automated yet proactive way of controlling the energy consumed in households through the real-time management of the contained appliances, whether they are in active or standby state.The proposed solution draws its originality from two main usability factors. First, it is non-invasive concerning its communication requirements, because it operates over any home network without introducing extra network components. Second, it adds intelligence in the network so that energy management is performed transparent to the home user.To satisfy both factors, the overall architecture brings together the latest IP communication technologies over mesh, wireless, fixed, and power line networks, and a residential gateway architecture that provides the middleware substrate for the formulation of a number of energy management services targeting three user categories: residential users, communication network operators, and electricity generation companies.The solution enables the first two user categories to build up energy management services for the maintenance of the energy consumed in households within user-defined limits, while it can be exploited by electricity generation companies in the acquisition of energy consumption figures for large population areas and the fine-tuning of energy generation planning.Although a brief overview of the architecture and its services is given in [4], in this article we give a complete detailed description of it, covering the energy management concept on which energy saving services operate, the protocols and interworking functions needed for services implementation, and the message flows that network components exchange in the context of the three energy management functions supported.In the following sections our energy management concept, which is fundamental for the realization of our architecture, is introduced, and the overall architecture along with its internal components is drawn up, as well as its protocols and exploitation capabilities in the broader landscape of energy saving applications. Energy Management ConceptA key aspect in the...

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