New steps have been made in the development of the HEMS mode in the VIKI application, in the past weeks – the communication interfaces with the new energy producers and consumers have been created. We are rapidly developing the concept of HEMS – Home Energy Management System, crucial for self-sustaining homes, which we mentioned in previous articles.
HEMS – Home Energy Management System includes both the hardware (equipment) and the software that manages the flow of energy production and consumption, allowing the user to monitor consumption, but also their own energy production (where it exists), respectively to control, manually or automatically, the energy consumption of the house. In the end, we want a house capable of managing its energy as well as possible, consuming as much of its own production as possible, so that the total cost of external energy resources consumed is minimal.
Thus, in September 2021 the VIKI team analyzed, applied and developed the interfaces with the connection parameters necessary for the integration of new energy producers: photovoltaic panels and wind turbine, but also the battery (UPS) that can store the energy produced by them – and which is absolutely necessary in a house where energy is also produced.
Regarding the energy consumers, in addition to light, multimedia, security, climate control equipment, we have developed new control interfaces, such as the washing machine, the dishwasher, but also the electric car.
All these modern houses equipment show, in addition to consumption values, respectively energy production, an operating program, which transforms them in terms of use into Programmable or Non-Programmable equipment.
The major challenge for the software development team is to create a workflow for optimal use of programmable consumers, so that energy consumption can be ensured as much as possible from its own production or, if not, at minimum network costs. This management of energy producers and consumers is done with the help of a programmable consumption planning algorithm, meant to support various constraints, obtained by using specific libraries – Mixed Integer Linear Programming.
The tests and scenarios run during this period aim, in addition to the efficiency in which the algorithm manages to ensure the desired profile of consumer use, the evaluation of response times in the presence, respectively in the absence of constraints, time to solve and obtain solutions, respectively the actual cost of energy consumed by the house.
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This stage of development of the VIKI system is carried out in partnership with the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca (UTCN), within the project “Management of electricity in a network with renewable sources”, proposed by UTCN and supported by the European Regional Development Fund. The MICROINV project includes research in the development of energy management algorithms for system efficiency, respectively maximizing energy consumption from renewable sources.
The project is co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund through the Competitiveness Operational Program 2014-2020.