PhD - In a Nutshell
Large-Scale Micro-Management of Domestic Electricity Consumption
As part of "Informed demand-side electricity load management", or "IDSLM", this project focuses on the design, construction and evaluation of a system that can micro-manage electricity, visualise consumption and interact efficienty with users. The other major area of investigation are economic issues surrounding such a system, including whether or not consumers are happy to change their behavior for financial incentives, measuring the performance and savings potential of the system on local and national levels.
Grid Monitor
New Zealand Real-time Grid Monitor
A grid monitor has been designed to monitor conditions within the electrical grid, namely frequency and voltage, to infer network conditions such as changes in demand and supply. Real-time measurements are streamed to the webpage at the link above.
Overview
Energy consumption is becoming a worldwide issue. There has been significant media attention surrounding global warming, and encouragement to conserve energy wherever possible. Electricity shortages have also received media attention during recent years in New Zealand, due to low rainfall levels into the lakes that supply hydroelectric power stations.
Peak power consumption is another reason for concern. Special generators that only operate during peak demand are typically inefficient and burn expensive fossil fuels.
Ideally, consumers would attempt to co-ordinate electricity usage to avoid significant peaks in demand, and making use of off-peak electricity. A significant problem is that consumers are not directly aware of the situation behind the power socket in the wall, and determining which appliances are using the most power is often not a straight-forward task. As Lord Kelvin once said, "If you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it".
The Project
The primary goal of this project is to improve the efficiency residential electricity consumption, through the design and deployment of 'smart home' technology. The main areas of focus are to reduce consumption during peak demand, and minimise unnecessary usage. To enable this, the system will provide:
- Better information: more detailed, more relevant, more quickly. At the moment your power company tells you "Your house used 600kWh of power in the last month", and this may be an estimate. Our aim is to be able to say things like "Your dryer has used $5.03 worth of electricity between 9.00 AM and 9.05 PM yesterday", "Are you aware that your fridge uses twice as much power than the average in your area?" and "If you turned your microwave off at the wall overnight, you could save over $40 a year. Would you like this to be done automatically for you?". Detailed information will also be available, such as the proportion of electricity used by each appliance, usage by time-of-day and visualisations designed to help with your understanding of where your money goes, and therefore provide guidance to achieve the most savings with the least effort.
- Better control. Everyone knows that turning stuff off will save power, but who can really be bothered? If this was done automatically without fail, many more people could make substantial savings. Additionally, switching off every unnecessary appliance (lighting, heating, water features...) when a user leaves their home could be done very quickly in one easy action.
- Better response to changing market conditions, such as changing supply and demand, through several mechanisms:
- Delay a load to minimise peak demand. Jobs such as washing clothes do not need to be done during peak demand periods. The system will allow users to set a deadline (e.g. "The clothes must be washed before 7.00 tomorrow morning"), and the system will co-ordinate everyone's requirements and schedule the washing to happen at an optimal time.
- Anticipate an upcoming load to minimise peak demand. For example, space heating is usually switched on at 6.00 AM, so water should be heated to the correct temperature right now.
- Temporary suspension of a discretionary activity, while a short-term imperative activity is required, to minimise peak demand. For example, water heating may be switched off for a few minutes while a kettle is used to boil water.
- React quickly to changing supply. For example, if there is a sudden surplus of electrical energy available from a gust of wind through a wind farm, dishes may be washed earlier rather than later, or hot water may be heated slightly hotter than normal - essentially 'storing' energy in a distributed manner.
Goals
- Investigate the potential for a complete in-home system that monitors and controls individual appliances in order to reduce electricity consumption, in particular during peak demand periods
- Implement methods of communicating electricity consumption to people who are not familiar with concepts such as energy and power, through applications of ubiquitous computing and ambient intelligence
- Devise large-scale distributed control algorithms that can provide stable behaviour when subject to changing conditions within the electrical grid, yet respond quickly to these changes.
- Investigate the feasibility of "storing" excess electrical energy in domestic appliances such as water heating, space heating and electric vehicles.
- Design and evaluate interaction techniques between consumers, their appliances and the electricity network.
The System
Specifically, the system under redevelopment is responsible for managing and reporting of electricity consumption at the lowest possible level - at every single power outlet and light switch in a house. Of course, this may not always be possible for various reasons - primarily cost. Therefore, the system's design is flexible to accommodate this.
Functionality
- Collect Data:
- The amount of electricity consumed by each and every appliance in a house
- Environmental factors such as light levels, sound levels and temperature
- Present Information:
- Provide detailed visualisations of current and historical electricity consumption
- Ambient visualisations
- Control Individual appliances:
- Manual, by pressing a button at the appliance
- Remote, over the Internet with a web browser, mobile device or media-center television
- Automatic, using a collection of user-defined rules
- Interact:
- With the user through speech recognition and synthesis, LEDs and a button at the appliance, and through a web interface
- With the environment, i.e. react to changing conditions
- With the electricity market, by reducing electricity consumption during peak demand and utilising lower-cost off-peak generation
Design
At the household level, the main components are the Household Controller and the Appliance Controller - aka E-Point. These components communicate over existing electrical wiring, allowing simple plug-n-play installation. In order to be as flexible as possible, any number of appliance controllers may be installed in a household - from one, up to a complete installation.