Energy-on-Demand System Based on Combinatorial Optimization of Appliance Power Consumptions

Abstract

In this paper, the author proposes an Energy-on-Demand (EoD) system based on combinatorial optimization of appliance power consumptions, and describes its implementation and evaluation. EoD is a novel power network architecture of demand-side power management, whose objective is to intelligently manage power flows among power generations under the limitation of available power resource. In an EoD system, when total power consumption exceeds the limit of power resource, a power allocation manager deployed in the system decides the optimal power allocation to all the appliances based on their importance and power consumptions, and controls the amount of power supplied to the appliances in a way that causes minimum undesired effect to quality-of-life of users. Therefore, one of the most crucial factors in an EoD system is the strategy for deciding the optimal power allocation. From a mathematical viewpoint, the power allocation management in an EoD system can be considered as an optimization problem of appliance operation modes. In the developed system, power allocation is based on the multiple-choice knapsack problem (MCKP), a kind of combinatorial optimization problem. The system measures power consumption of appliances, computes the optimal power allocation based on an algorithm for the MCKP, and realizes computed power allocation by controlling IR-controllable appliances and mechanical relays. Through experiments, the developed system is confirmed to work properly as an EoD system by observing system behaviors when the total power consumption exceeds the upper limit of the available power resource.