Residential demand response under uncertainty

Abstract

This paper considers a residential market with real-time electricity pricing and flexible electricity consumption profiles for customers. Such a market raises an optimisation problem for home automation systems where they need to schedule consumption activities to reduce costs, whilst maintaining a base level of comfort and convenience. This optimisation problem faces uncertainty in real-time prices, weather conditions, and occupant behaviour. The paper presents two online stochastic combinatorial optimisation algorithms that produce fast, high-quality solutions to this problem. These algorithms are compared with reactive control strategies and a clairvoyant controller. Our results demonstrate the value of stochastic information and online stochastic optimisation in residential demand response. © 2013 Springer-Verlag.