Optimal Threshold Policy for In-Home Smart Grid with Renewable Generation Integration

In-home Smart Grid (SG), the integration of Renewable Power Systems (RPSs) with Conventional Power Systems (CPSs), calls for cost-effective management for the electricity usages of end users´ household appliances. In this paper, by taking the charging process of RPSs and multiple types of household appliances in to consideration, we have developed analytical models to characterize the electricity cost in the in-home smart grid. Based on these models, we formulate the electricity cost minimization problem as a finite-horizon continuous-time Markov decision process (CTMDP), from which we obtain a threshold policy to minimize the cost. Numerical results show that the threshold policy can manage the electricity usage very effectively.