Most advantages that the smart grid will bring derive from its capability of improving reliability performance and customers' responsiveness and encouraging greater efficiency decisions by the customers. In this optic, the paper presents an innovative Energy Management System for smart houses, allowing the optimization of the electricity cost and electrical energy consumption and, at the same time, preserving the enduser comfort.

In this paper, a novel Energy Management System (EMS) is proposed for a hybrid energy system with photovoltaic (PV) and energy storage system for a smart house. The EMS is designed to control the shiftable loads, the air conditioning and the electric storage system. The aim is to reduce the electrical energy consumption cost without compromising the end-user comfort. Monte Carlo Simulation (MCS) is used to estimate the optimal size of the hybrid system considering energy saving and investment costs. Simulations results confirm the effectiveness of the proposed EMS in decreasing the electrical energy consumption and costs. The proposed method for the sizing of the hybrid system is also able to select the best size of the PV-battery system in smart houses. Some studies focus on the characteristics of the converters in the micro-grid systems with the aim of improving the conversion efficiency. In [7], a hybrid system consisting of a PV array and rechargeable battery integrated to the distribution grid is presented. The system performs load sharing with the distribution grid by controlling the voltage source inverter (VSI), the boost and the buck-boost converters. The cost-benefits problem of solar PV technology is analyzed in [8,9]. In [8], the authors propose a system with given PV modules and EES based on bank capacities to solve the daily energy flow control problem. Furthermore, in order to facilitate intensive penetration of PV production into the grid, a method is proposed in [9]. Peak shaving is realized with the minimal cost and power fluctuations on the grid are reduced by using a power supervisor based on a predictive power scheduling algorithm. A basic analysis study of stand-alone solar PV micro-grid power system is presented in [10]. The system is designed on the basis of residential load profile and solar exposure level in a particular area. In order to improve the integration of PV and energy storage systems, a power management strategy is designed to manage power flows between PV systems and an ultra-capacitor (UC) [11].A numerical model that computes an optimized capacity of energy consumption is proposed in [12]. This model is based on weekly forecast with the aim of providing a stable energy that is insulated from the instability of weather change. The system is able to increase the energy consumption in normal days while maintaining minimum stable energy in bad weather conditions.To increase the use of PV energy in the residential applications, some researchers suggest a control of power flow and a selection of MPPT parameters for grid-connected PV systems with battery storage [13]. Other works discuss these issues in terms of innovative converter features for PV-battery systems [14]; a reconfigurable solar converter (RSC) is presented to perform dc/ac and dc/dc operations, by using a single-stage three phase grid-tie solar PV converter.A control method for the power electronic converters is discussed in [15]: the potential of utilizing battery energy storage for participating in primary frequenc...

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