User-Centered Energy Management for a Multi-Residential Building with Public Loads and Electric Vehicles

This paper proposes a user-centered energy management system (EMS) for a multi-residential building that optimally schedules household loads, public loads, and electric vehicle (EV) charging. The proposed approach enables each resident to autonomously schedule their household load without the need to compromise for system-wide feasibility. The system-wide feasibility will be ensured using an adjustment scheme to iteratively adjust the EV state-of-charge (SoC) targets. The EMS employs a hierarchical approach, where the Home Energy Management System first optimizes individual residential appliance scheduling, followed by the Global Energy Management System, which optimizes community-level resources and EV charging scheduling. This user-centric design minimizes disruption to residents' comfort while ensuring system-wide feasibility. Simulations demonstrate significant improvements in computation time while preserving the user-centered approach compared to traditional methods. The results highlight the potential of the proposed EMS as an effective, scalable solution for managing energy in multi-residential buildings with diverse energy needs.