A Residential House Comparative Case Study Using Market Available Smart Plugs and EnAPlugs with Shared Knowledge

Abstract

Smart home devices currently available on the market can be used for remote monitoring and control. Energy management systems can take advantage of this and deploy solutions that can be implemented in our homes. One of the big enablers is smart plugs that allow the control of electrical resources while providing a retrofitting solution, hence avoiding the need for replacing the electrical devices. However, current so-called smart plugs lack the ability to understand the environment they are in, or the electrical appliance/resource they are controlling. This paper applies environment awareness smart plugs (EnAPlugs) able to provide enough data for energy management systems or act on its own, via a multi-agent approach. A case study is presented, which shows the application of the proposed approach in a house where 17 EnAPlugs are deployed. Results show the ability to shared knowledge and perform individual resource optimizations. This paper evidences that by integrating artificial intelligence on devices, energy advantages can be observed and used in favor of users, providing comfort and savings.

Open collaborative smart plugs for energy management

“…The first version of EnaPlug was proposed in 2017, with application in a refrigerator, according to reference [4] , containing an Arduino Mega, an Ethernet Shield, a MAX 485, a power analyzer (CVM-1D), a door opening sensor, external and internal temperature sensors, an internal humidity sensor, and a relay. References [4] , [5] , [6] , [7] highlight the use of the Environmental Awareness smart Plug (EnAPlug) as a solution for application in a research and study centers to enable the study, testing, and validation of methodologies and models for energy management inside buildings. In [6] , a new update is proposed that allows access to the operating system, enabling the processing and storage of data with a focus on the possibilities of learning in the consumption profiles and habits of users, in addition to the sharing of information between the different EnAPlugs.…”

“…In [6] , a new update is proposed that allows access to the operating system, enabling the processing and storage of data with a focus on the possibilities of learning in the consumption profiles and habits of users, in addition to the sharing of information between the different EnAPlugs. In article [7] EnAPlug is used for the integration of artificial intelligence with the acquisition of sufficient data for energy management or for decision-making through devices, through the application of Multi-Agent System (MAS).…”

“…This article proposes the presentation of the EnAPlug hardware with the aim of motivating and stimulating the development of new models and versions for energy management applications and contributing to the improvements of EnAPlug, as this is not a commercial product [7] . Fig.…”

μGIM - Microgrid intelligent management system based on a multi-agent approach and the active participation of end-users

“…The target of those publications were international conferences and journals with an impact factor. The list of publications where EnAPlug can be found are: (Gomes, 2019d).…”

“…The experimentation shown in this section uses a combination of real and simulated data. The presented deployment was published in Energies journal, with an impact factor of 2.707, in the beginning of 2019 (third year of PhD) (Gomes, 2019d). This experimentation uses a scenario where a two-bedroom apartment was used, considered as a part of couple's home.…”