Cyclic blackout mitigation using rationing smart meters

The ever-increasing demand for electric power presents a massive, worldwide, challenge. One consequence of the shortage of available power is a series of small and large cyclic blackouts affecting millions of people; the paper details a solution to mitigate the effects of such blackouts. The proposed solution is based on utilising power superfluity from neighbourhood standby generation resources and distributing it to end users using rationing smart meters (RSM) to allocate the power consumed by each dwelling to an amount governed by the available surplus power. The system uses the power allocated for each house to meet its base load and to allocate one Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning (HVAC) appliance. Three types of HVAC appliances are clustered and that pool is powered according to the available aggregated surplus standby power. The approach is evaluated through an emulation platform and the results show that the system is capable of bridging the gap between supplies off periods with sufficient power to provide a good Quality-of-Service level.