Human Comfort-Based-Home Energy Management for Demand Response Participation

The residential building sector is encouraged to participate in demand response (DR) programs owing to its flexible and effective energy resources during peak hours with the help of a home energy management system (HEMS). Although the HEMS contributes to reducing energy consumption of the building and the participation of occupants in energy saving programs, unwanted interruptions and strict guidance from the system cause inconvenience to the occupants further leading to their limited participation in the DR programs. This paper presents a human comfort-based control approach for home energy management to promote the DR participation of households. Heating and lighting systems were chosen to be controlled by human comfort factors such as thermal comfort and visual comfort. Case studies were conducted to validate the proposed approach. The results showed that the proposed approach could effectively reduce the energy consumption during the DR period and improve the occupants’ comfort.