Demand side management and energy efficiency in residential area within smart grids

Peak demand has been increasing in recent years due to the population growth, new technologies and user preferences. Besides, the cost of electricity is considerably higher than other type of energies. For this reason, it is necessary to pay attention to the consumption of electricity. Increase in energy costs and energy demand has also made energy efficiency compulsory. Electrical appliances and lighting used in house can be used with less energy without affecting the comfort level. In the first part of this thesis, an example of a middle-income family living in the city center has been examined and analyzed. The electrical appliances required for daily life and lighting have been measured properly for a month using 12 smart plugs. 18 capsule halogen bulbs (each of them is 20 watt) with a few compact fluorescent (CFLs) bulbs were used in the selected family for lighting. At the end of the month, it has seen that the consumption of electricity used for refrigerator and lighting in household was more than half of the total consumption. As a result of the measurements made with smart plugs during the month of December, it was observed that the lighting with the highest electricity consumtion is 22 % share. There is a considerably potential for saving electricity consumption when the number of energy-saving CFLs is increased and light-emitting capsule diodes (LEDs) are used instead of capsule halogen bulbs. It is also important not to change the consumer's comfort habits. Therefore, the changed bulbs should have either similar or identical features such as color temperature and lumen value. When 18 halogen capsule bulbs were replaced with the same number of led capsule bulbs (each of them is 3 watt), there is a significant decrease in electricity consumption. Consumption by lighting decreased from 71,779 kWh to 18,992 kWh and total consumption decreased from 330,047 kWh to 277,26 kWh changing bulbs and share of lighting was decreased from 22% to 7%. The energy efficiency is useful for not only customers, but also for distribution system. The use of electricity for lighting usually starts in the evening hours. Some of these hours overlap with peak hours. Therefore, energy efficiency by lighting leads to a decrease in peak loads in the evening hours. It is important that the energy efficiency can be made without any additional investment other than replacing the bulbs. Energy efficiency by lighting is highly effective to reduce the consumer's budget. In addition, it plays a key role for distribution system in decreasing peak load. Demand Side Management has been seen as a means of referring to activities between the utility and its customers. Demand Side Management plays a key role for managing load in peak hours and reducing peak electricity demand. It provides benefits for customers, utilities and societal. Moreover economic, reliability and environmental benefits can be obtained with DSM strategies applied to electricity network. The main purpose of DSM is to encourage consumers to shift the time of energy use from peak hours to off peak hours and/or to use less energy during peak hours. Smart Plug (SP) is an electronic device which helps users to control their electrical appliances from a smart phone or tablet. Smart plugs can be inserted between plug and power socket and they provide real time measurement and communication. In the second part of this thesis, manageable loads with manual control like iron and vacuum cleaner, and manageable loads with smart plug control like dishwasher and washing machine were shifted from peak hours to off-peak hours by the load shifting technique, one of the DSM techniques using smart plugs and also manageable load with smart thermostat control like combi boiler has been changed its working time by peak reduction technique, one of the DSM techniques using smart thermostat. As a result of th analysis 33,24% of the manageable loads were shifted from peak hours to off peak hours where the electricity unit price was cheaper. Home automation systems give consumer access to control devices in their homes from a mobile phone or tablet anywhere in the world. Home automation systems can be used for not only lights, electrical appliances, electrical outlets but also programmable devices, heating and cooling systems and they are connected to remotely controllable network. Where home automation systems become "smart" is in the internet enabled that attach to this network and control them. Heating, cooling, ventilating and air conditioning systems known as HVAC are systems that regulate and control the heating, cooling and ventilation of the environment. HVAC systems are considerably energy consuming systems and HVAC automation, which takes into account the characteristics of the living environment (house, shopping center, industrial facilities, entertainment places, etc.) allows significant energy savings. The energy consumed in HVAC systems varies between 15% and 60%, depending on the characteristics of the building and the intended use. In systems, where energy consumption is so high, it is very important to use efficient energy and to reduce the waste energy. Energy savings in HVAC systems can be achieved without making concessions the desired level of comfort. Applications to be made in HVAC systems can provide up to 40% energy saving in operating costs with good HVAC automation. When it comes to home automation systems, few devices can make as large an impact on consumers' energy usage as a new thermostat. Their home's HVAC system is typically the largest energy consumer in a home. By extending greater control of consumers HVAC systems, they can substantially curb their home's energy usage. Average household spends 1900$ a year on energy costs with half going toward heating and cooling. Similarly, average household spends well over 1,000 £ a year on heating and powering for UK families. For this reason, residential thermostats play an important role in controlling heating and cooling systems for over sixty years. Residential thermostats control a significant part of both electrical and fuel energy. There are three main types of thermostats used in residential area. These are manual (dumb), programmable and smart thermostats. Manual thermostats remained one of the simplest components of a home heating system for a long time. While manual thermostats are easy to use, they have many disadvantages like limited accuracy and inability to perform automatic temperature changes. Programmable thermostats allow consumers to enter a heating and cooling temperature set point, setup temperature for each day of the week or give the thermostat schedule to operate by. Since consumers do not have full control over programmable thermostats, smart thermostats provide a good solution in flexibility and type of controlling for consumers. Consumers can arrange their schedules remotely using smart thermostats. This process gives consumers complete control over when their home's heating and cooling equipment runs. Since smart thermostats Wi-Fi enabled, consumers can use smartphones and tablets to remotely monitor them and make changes. Programmable and smart thermostats help consumers manage energy bills and they can save money. In the third part of this thesis, three separate tests were conducted in a selected house using programmable and smart thermostats for heating system. If the heating system is shut down by smart thermostat for certain hours, it has been show that the consumers save electricity energy and money on a large scale. Especially if people who work between 8:00-17:00 hours and who are not at home because of this, shut down their combi boiler in these hours, they can save energy and money using smart thermostat. In fourth part of this thesis, a graphical user interface was created using Visual Basic Application based Excel to create awareness of energy for consumers. With the interface, consumers will be able to see all the electrical appliances they use in their homes by selecting their brands and models in the program. After the device selection, consumers will be able to graphically display the total electricity consumption and total cost. In addition, one-tier pricing and three-tier pricing are applied for pricing of electricity in Turkey. With this program, consumers will also be able to find out which tariffs are advantageous for them.