A Low Cost Implementation of Home Area Networks for Home Energy Management Systems

Effective management of energy consumption at the consumer level is a vital part of the future Smart Grids. An efficient Home Energy Management System (HEMS) is a crucial and necessary interface between the Demand Side Management (DSM) techniques and the actual control of the energy consumption by the users in a building. In this paper we present an implementation of an efficient and extremely cost-effective Zigbee based Home Area Network (HAN) that seamlessly integrates the HEMS with the DSM within the goals and constraints set by the user while keeping the consumers informed about their energy consumption through a user interface. This paper focuses on the hardware design of a smart socket in the HAN that includes a wireless communication interface, a smart energy meter and a switching mechanism to control the appliances. The emphasis is on keeping the cost of the design to a minimum to encourage the deployment of the proposed energy managing home area network in the developing countries where there is a dire need for energy management.