Dynamic QoS and QoE balancing model for smart Home Energy Management Systems

The existing up-to-date Home Energy Management System (HEMS) solutions encapsulate the latest trends and innovations from ICT. The monitoring, control and management of power system measurements obtained without the possibility of engaging the consumer satisfaction, characterize HEMS as static system, on contrarily to its dynamic small scale smart grid definition. In this paper, we discuss the benefits of understanding the consumer behavior and implementing consumer preferences in a form of quality indices: Quality of Service (QoS) and Quality of Experience (QoE). We propose a dynamic QoS and QoE balancing model for continuous improvements in the results from the application of Smart HEMSs (SHEMSs). The consumer engagement in balancing QoS and QoE leads towards continuous redefinition of control decision rules and therefore provides flexible, sustainable, self-reliable, and customer-personalized SHEMS. The real time testing of the dynamic QoS and QoE balancing model on a test bed of different power appliances showed encouraging improvements of 9% in energy saving and 7% reduction in energy cost.