Home Energy Management Systems: Operation and Resilience of Heuristics against Cyberattacks

Abstract

Internet of Things (IoT) and advanced communication technologies have demonstrated great potential to manage residential energy resources by enabling demand-side management (DSM). Home energy management systems (HEMSs) can automatically control electricity production and usage inside homes using DSM techniques. These HEMSs will wirelessly collect information from hardware installed in the power system and in homes with the objective to intelligently and efficiently optimize electricity usage and minimize costs. However, HEMSs can be vulnerable to cyberattacks that target the electricity pricing model. The cyberattacker manipulates the pricing information collected by a customer's HEMS to misguide its algorithms toward non-optimal solutions. The customer's electricity bill increases, and additional peaks are created without being detected by the system operator. This article introduces demand-response (DR)based DSM in HEMSs and discusses DR optimization using heuristic algorithms. Moreover, it discusses the possibilities and impacts of cyberattacks, their effectiveness, and the degree of resilience of heuristic algorithms against cyberattacks. This article also opens research questions and shows prospective directions.

A Shrinking Horizon Model Predictive Controller for Daily Scheduling of Home Energy Management Systems

“…The HEMS would provide the consumer with operation patterns with respect to the energy consumption data of the home, the target of the scheduling, the preferences of the consumer, and also the energy price. It is noteworthy that cyber security issues should also be addressed in such systems [3]. HEMSs have been discussed throughout the literature.…”