Demand side management algorithms and modeling

in smart grids
A customers behavior based study
El Hassan Et-Tolba*, Mohamed Maaroufi

Mohammed Ouassaid, Member, IEEE

Department of Electrical Engineering,

Ecole Mohammadia dIngnieurs,
Mohammed V-Agdal University, Rabat, Morocco
*tolhaha@gmail.com, maaroufi@emi.ac.ma

Department of Industrial Engineering,

Ecole Nationale des Sciences Appliques-Safi,
Cadi Ayyad University, Safi, Morocco
ouassaid@emi.ac.ma

AbstractThis paper presents algorithms and architecture

models for a home energy management system. Its based on
customers behavior that is modeled by a decision-making chain,
and smart appliances use for demand side management. The
proposed architecture is scalable and extensible to upper levels of
smart grid as the development approach used is bottom-up. Once
the model is validated for home use, we can go up and apply it for
holdings, factories, and micro-grids contexts. Scalability models
and strategies are also presented and discussed. Ensuring supply
and demand balance at real time is the main problematic of
smart grids. The proposed solution meets this objective, because
it allows large scale renewable energy resources integration.
Hence, it leads to global energy efficiency and demand side
management optimization in smart grids
Keywords-smart grids; demand side management; smart
appliances; customers behavior; renewable energy; distribution
network; energy consumption;

I.

INTRODUCTION

Demand side management is very important in smart grids

to ensure the offer and demand balance in real time. It has been
realized that modification to the way we use energy in the
demand side could not only save money but also satisfy the
level of quality demanded by users of energy services [1]. The
term Demand-Side Management (DSM) did not exist prior to
1973. It appeared within an atmosphere of chaos in relation to
an impending energy crisis and uncertainties, which prevailed
at that time [2]. Hence the agreement of controlling some loads
when they are needed was reached and the term DSM officially
came into being [1]. Nowadays, as many high coverage
blackouts occurred around the world these last recent years, the
architecture of traditional electrical networks has been
challenged. So they are gradually giving up in favor of smart
grids. This new electrical network generation mobilized both
utilities and researchers and has led to many scientific
proposals and ideas.
Smart grids can be defined from a functional point of view
as an electric network able to integrate all the branched
customers and producers actions to distribute electric energy
efficiently, successfully, at low operating costs and safely [3].
In a business case study of CISCO, smart grids are described as
the combined view that uses the information network to

enhance the functioning of the electricity grid [4]. It can also

be seen essentially as a control problem including optimization
of delivery, demand, asset, reliability and renewable resources
integration that will lead to operational and energy efficiency,
customer satisfaction (Quality of Service) and CO2 reduction
[5].
There are two key technologies enabling demand side load
optimization [6]:

Building automation

Smart metering

This paper interests in the first technology above. Many

researchers studied and discussed these two technologies from
different aspects. About the first technology, Building
automation, it has been concluded that the presence of
distributed generation (solar, Wind, biomass) and storage
facilities (batteries, fuel cell, Plug-in Hybrid Electric
Vehicles) will help to create Zero Net Energy Buildings and
Districts (ZNEBs) [7]. Then, a general philosophy of demand
side load management for adjusting energy demand/offer
balance is presented in [8]. Where an explanation of home
automation importance for power load control and how smart
appliances should be redesigned is also given. Then, the major
requirements from a hardware and software perspective for
smart appliances design, with analysis of potential
communication techniques, each with their specific advantages
and disadvantages are presented in [9]. In addition to a
universal appliance interface enabling design of a controller
with different interfaces types for a wide range of common use
appliances that is given in [10]. The demand forecasting
process become more efficient with the use of flexible loads
that can be managed and controlled to reduce sizes of
generation units, buying and selling energy from distribution
grid and total cost of smart microgrid [11]. This process can
use top down or bottom up approaches, based on statistical or
engineering methods. It models energy consumption according
to thermal characteristics of houses, consumption profile of
appliances and behavior of householders [12]. These last points
are mainly discussed in this paper; our proposed system
architecture and models are based on smart appliances use and
consumers behavior modeling. Otherwise, a new three-layer
household energy control system capable both to satisfy the

978-1-4673-6374-7/13/$31.00 2013 IEEE

maximum available electrical energy constraint and to

maximize user comfort criteria is presented in [13]. Another
distributed load control and demand side management system
which is able to even out fluctuations in the daily energy load
is studied by [14]. Moreover, in [15], a framework for
distributed D/R with user adaptation based on assessed
techniques in telecommunications networks decongestion is
given. The reliability of these systems depends on their
maintenance. It has been proved that by enabling preventive
maintenance, some precautions like computing thermo images
of electrical devices or determining the load capability and
insulation aging factor can reduce by 2.5 times the failure risk
[6].
As for the second technology, smart metering, it has also
been an interesting subject for several studies. In a business
based study, a general overview on smart meters with analyzes
of their functionalities and supported services were presented
in [16]. And their social benefits have been investigated in
[17]. Then, its very important to make devices smarter, but not
with any cost; as it has been affirmed: attributing intelligence,
which implies value, to these technologies begs the question on
how to measure the gains to realize from making such
investments. Not surprisingly making devices smarter is not by
itself sufficient to produce benefits to exceed their costs [17].
About the social welfare, it can be maximized by dynamic
pricing that has been studied in [18]. Its affirmed that when
the customer is price taking, he commits to shedding or
increasing its consumption according to its bid and the energy
price thats dynamically defined by utilities. But, conversely in
[19], its shown that in an oligopolistic market where
customers are price-anticipating and strategic, the system
achieves a unique Nash equilibrium that maximizes another
additive, global objective function.". Then, a mathematical
approach for distributed optimal power flow computation using
smart meters, distributed generation facilities and remote load
control was presented in [20]. The study showed how the upper
layers in smart grids provide information and control to lower
layers as it is explained by Figure 1.

noises interfering with the carrier signal is presented in [22].

Moreover, simulations for home communication network based
on PLC technology and investigated security and data
consistency issues are made in [23].
As we already mentioned above, the concern of this paper
and objective is to give a home automation system architecture
that is based on smart appliances integration and customers
behavior modeling. This last aspect is generally missed in
literature or described as uncontrollable. We provide here a
technique that consists in decision making chain modeling that
will be explained clearly in section III of this paper. For the
interaction between users, smart appliances and the home
energy management system (HEM), we used Unified Modeling
Language (UML) use cases diagram, to show what
functionalities are offered by the HEM to users. Then, to
explain the structure of this system, we used UML class
diagram that allowed seeing each component description,
functions and relation with other components; this diagram
allowed also to classify these elements and showed clearly the
organization of the proposed system architecture. These
diagrams are made with the free ArgoUML software. We
choose it because it allows code generation in many
programming languages. We, hence, can deduct the operating
algorithms of HEM and smart appliances.
The next section of this paper presents the demand side
management problem and program, while section III concerns
DSM modeling and algorithms. The presented models and
results are discussed in section IV and some issues and future
work are given before concluding.
II.

A. Domestic loads classification

Domestic energy requests have different time scales, which
allow classifying loads in three categories based on appliances
intrinsic characteristics [24] :

Baseline loads refers to those appliances that must be

activated immediately at any time, or maintained at
Stand by mode. Their economic value doesnt allow
any intelligence integration, and they are not
controllable because they depend on consumer
behavior and comfort [24]. Lighting, TV, and
computing are some examples.

Regular loads are those corresponding to the

appliances that are operated for long time periods like
fridge and water heater

Burst loads concerns the appliances that must operate

for a limited time period within deadlines. This last
type can be flexible and so delayed to start operation in
another moment, like washing machine, dryer and
dishwasher.

Country

Region

Control

Information

Local

Domestic

Figure 1. Control layered architecture in smart grids

Another important aspect of smart meters is information

communication. The state of the art about smart metering
communication standards relevant to the smart grid and smart
house concepts is analyzed in [21] with an architectural
overview of the existing information and communication
technologies (ICT) standards related. Then, an implementation
of power line communication (PLC) system with an improved
orthogonal frequency multiplex algorithm to limit narrow band

DEMAND SIDE MANAGEMENT PROBLEM

The peak loads problem is mainly caused by regular and

burst loads combination.

Demand (MW)

Demand (MW)

B. Demand Side Management program

The Figure 2 shows traditional and advanced forms of load
management. Traditional ones are represented by left hand
curves {(a), (b), and (c)}, while advanced ones are given by
right hand curves {(d), (e), and (f)}

t(s)

(d) Strategic Conservation

t(s)

Inputs:
Synch. Clock
Start
Stop
Time

Outputs:
Status
Preemption
Required Energy
Heuristic Value
Power Load
Nominal Power

Demand (MW)

Demand (MW)

(a) Peak Clipping

User Interface

Figure 3. Smart appliance interface design

t(s)

(e) Strategic Load Growth

t(s)

Demand (MW)

Demand (MW)

(b) Valley Filling

(c) Load Shifting

t(s)

(f) Flexible Load Shape

t(s)

Figure 2. Load shape for DSM program

There are six load shape objectives for load management

programs that are stated in the literature [1] which are
categorized under basic level (peak clipping, valley filling and
load shifting) and advanced level (strategic conservation,
strategic load growth and flexible load shape). This paper goes
with the advanced level, more specifically flexible loads
(Figure 2 (f)).
III.

DSM MODELING AND ALGORITHMS

A. Smart appliances design

The development and redesign of mart appliances will
make revolutionary change in demand side energy
consumption and consumers habits, since they allow operation
and control automation. To define a generic design for a smart
appliance is extremely difficult due to the many different
vendors and device functions [9]. This can also be seen by the
features of existing solutions, which cover several aspects but
still leave potential for improvement and standardization.
Following in Figure 3, we give and describe a smart appliance
interface that is appropriate to be used with the proposed
system architecture.

This interface design shows the required inputs and outputs

data and signals for smart appliances to operate and
communicate automatically with the HEM. The inputs are
Synch. Clock for clock synchronization signal, Start and
Stop correspond to user manual switch On/Off the appliance
while Time is considered as an explicit internal signal [24].
As for the outputs, they are Status that provides the appliance
status (Run, Off, Ready,..), Preemption witch indicates
whether the appliance can be suspended or not, Required
Energy, Heuristic Value that expresses the appliance
operation urgency, Power Load and Nominal Power
B. Components Class diagram
The Figure 4 shows the UML (Unified Modeling
Language) class diagram of the DSM system components and
interaction with smart appliances. This diagram is made with
the free ArgoUML software that provides the advantage of
multiple programming languages (Cpp, Java, Php, C#, etc.)
code generation, as we will see later in this paper. The main
classes modeled are the three load categories: Baseline_Load,
Regular_Load, and Burst_Load, Smart_Appliance,
HEM (Home Energy Manager), and the three HEM sub
layers:
Admission_Control,
Load_Balancer,
and
Load_Forecaster all with their interaction and communication
links. The class Load is a generalization of classes
Baseline_load and Smart_Appliance which is also a
generalization of classes Regular_Load and Burst_Load.
The class Load can send a Request to HEM witch accepts
or refuse its corresponding smart appliance operation. The
HEM is structured in three sub layers: the bottom layer is
Admission_Control that accepts or refuses a request
according to the available capacity. The layer above is
Load_Balancer that schedules the appliances operation and
reschedule the refused request by Admission_Control. The
top layer, Load_Forecaster is the interface with smart grid
that gives the demand forecasting based on information about
available capacity and energy cost.

Figure 4. Components class diagram

C. Home Energy Manager Use cases diagram

The Figure 5 shows the UML use cases diagram made with
the same software above. This diagram shows users and smart
appliances needs from the HEM. It answers the question: who
can do what? without any how? answer. Note that smart
appliances support both automatic activation and manual
control operation by users. The diagram presents two actors:
User and Smart Appliance that can initiate much
functionality offered by the system. These functionalities are
the use cases represented by ellipses in the diagram. Those
offered to the actor User are: Choose profile, in this case,

the profile is defined by User, Delay Flexible Appliance and

Accept/Refuse Proposed Profile, in this case the profile is
proposed by the HEM. These three use cases are conditioned
by the availability of capacity and energy cost information. As
for the actor Smart Appliance, the use cases that can be
initiated are: Send_Request that consists on sending the
interface outputs (Figure 3) to the HEM, and Receive
Activation Signal explains the acceptance of smart appliance
operation. This last case is conditioned by the availability of
capacity.

Figure 5. HEM use cases diagram

D. HEM Operating algorithms

As we already mentioned, following we present some
examples of Java language code generation from last diagrams.
We opted for this language as its the most used in applications
development, then its clearly commented and helps to go back
for extracting algorithmic description of the system operation.
The given classes code bone examples concern HEM,
Smart_Appliance and Admission_Control respectively.
import java.util.Vector;
public class HEM {
/**
* @element-type Load
*/
public Vector Request;
public Admission_Control
myAdmission_Control;
/**
* @element-type Layer
*/
public Vector myLayer;
public void SendActivationControl() {
}
}
public class Smart_Appliance extends Load {

S2, C=?, K=?

D1
D2

D1

D3
S1, C=?, K=?

D2

D2

D4

D1

S3, C=?, K=?

D1

D4

D3

S4, C=?, K=?

D2

Legend:
D : Decision
S : Situation
C : Capacity
K : Cost

D4
D3
D4

Figure 6. Customers decision making chain

F. DSM scalability for Smart grids

Once the bottom level (HEM System) is operational, we
can go up and extend the architecture to cover the whole smart
grid. So two choices are possible:

public Integer App_Id;

Subsystems view (Microgrids)

public void SendRequest() {

}

Layered architecture

public class Admission_Control extends Layer

{
public Integer Capacity;
public HEM myHEM;
public Load_Balancer myLoad_Balancer;

D3

For subsystems view, its a vertical decomposition of smart

grids where every operational DSM system is considered as an
autonomous entity that can manage smart appliances requests
with an available capacity and energy cost information or
profile. The Figure 7 shows the smart grid construction strategy
based on this technique. The clouds represent smart microgrids
which are the global autonomous entities; themselves contain
other autonomous sub entities and so on until the bottom level
that is HEM.

public void Accept() {

}

Smart Grid

public void Reject() {

}
}

requests

Micro Grid Manager

Global Load Balancer

E. Consumer behavior modeling

To model the customer behavior, we start from a point
where the customer is in a situation S and can make a decision
D based on a given available capacity C and energy cost profile
K. The decision made brings him to another making decision
situation and so on until hes satisfied or unavailability of
capacity and energy cost information. The Figure 6 shows an
example of this making decision chain where the customer can
choose between four decisions D1, D2, D3, and D4. Each made
decision brings him to another situation S1, S2, S3, and S4
with an available capacity C1, C2, C3, and C4; and an energy
cost K1, K2, K3, and K4. The chain starts by beginning state
and finishes with final one.

DSM1

DSM2

DSM3

Micro Grid Manager

Global Load Balancer
DSM1

DSM2

DSM3

Micro Grid Manager

Global Load Balancer
DSM1

DSM2

DSM3

Figure 7. Smart grid subsystems view

As for the layered architecture, a horizontal view, the

interconnection between many local DSM systems allows to
construct the bottom layer Layer 1 which role can be similar
to the Admission_Control role in HEM. Then, by the same
way when many Global Load Balancers are joined, they
represent the second layer above Layer 2. Finally, the third
layer Layer 3 came from the connection between many Micro
Grid Managers. The Figure 8 gives the model corresponding to
this technique.

Micro Grid Manager

Micro Grid Manager

Micro Grid Manager

Global Load Balancer

Global Load Balancer

Global Load Balancer

DSM1

DSM1

DSM1

DSM2

DSM3

DSM2

DSM3

DSM2

DSM3

Layer 3
Layer 2
Layer 1

Figure 8. Smart grid layered architecture

IV.

DISCUSSION

The DSM is actually one of the important studied aspects

for smart grids. Hence, it has been a subject for many
researches and studies. From our point of view we gave some
algorithms and models to explain the operation of this new
involving technology. We could give a clear idea about
customers behavior, thing that can lead to an efficient DSM.
The presented models are validated by code generation. Smart
grids are reach area of research and propositions; even if their
context is different over the world, but a need for
standardization of smart appliances and their use is already felt.
V.

CONCLUSION

In this paper we presented a demand side management

architecture models and algorithms based on customers
behavior and smart appliances integration. We gave a smart
appliance interface modeling with required data and signal
inputs and outputs. Then UML class and use case diagrams
presented and explained in section III, allowed us to generate a
java bone code for the proposed architecture. After that, we
modeled the customer behavior by a decision making chain and
finally discussed the scalability of the proposition. The code
generation is the main obtained results, as it will allow
simulating the architecture in a future work and show its
effective gain from the presented system.
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