Energy-Constrained Critical Load Aware Post-Disaster Home Energy Management

The increasing frequency and severity of extreme weather events, driven by climate change, pose significant threats to critical infrastructure, including the electric power grid. These disruptions disproportionately impact underserved communities, exacerbating energy access inequalities during post-disaster recovery. In the absence of a functional electric power delivery system, local generation and storage provided by small solar PV installations and battery storage can enhance resiliency. However, these systems provide a limited amount of daily energy that is not sufficient to fully power all electric loads, necessitating prioritizing critical loads. This research proposes an energy-constrained home energy management system that optimizes the use of limited available energy to maximize the use of user-defined critical loads. The problem is formulated as a quadratic binary program and the approach is shown feasible on a 24-hour simulation with load and energy information known a priori. The proposed approach is promising to support the broader goals of energy resilience and equity, providing a pathway to mitigate the impact of grid disruptions on vulnerable communities.