ENERGY REDUCTION IN RESIDENTIAL HOUSING UNITS

Energy Management, being a pressing issue when energy crisis is considered, becomes a subject of study from a conservation perspective for residential housing units. Utilization of home energy management systems (HEMS) becomes viable when housing units continue to utilize solar photovoltaic systems for local power generation and add additional loads for electric vehicle charging. This paper identifies major areas of poor energy management at home for appliances such as televisions, wi-fi routers, etc., that contain small LED indicator lamps in unused condition when power-offed. Both reductions of energy demand by implementing steps such as restricted heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) thermostats within permissible temperature settings and increasing the local power generation by solar photovoltaic systems becomes another viable solution. Additionally, an integrated home energy management system wherein the customers from different housing units communicate in an integrated manner to flatten the demand curve by shifting some of the loads during off-peak periods serves as a great tool in energy conservation. Some loads become essential loads, whereas many others are deemed non-essential depending on the time-of-day of usage. HEMS tends to select between essential vs non-essential loads for a given customer at a given time and instructs them on the feasibility of switching between grid and household battery energy storage systems or waiting until the grid is prepared to serve a given type of load.