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IEEE TRANSACTION ON INDUSTRIAL INFORMATICS - SPECIAL SECTION ON SMART GRID 1
Optimal Home Energy Management under
Dynamic Electrical and Thermal Constraints
Francesco De Angelis, Matteo Boaro, Danilo Fuselli, Stefano Squartini, IEEE Senior Member,
Francesco Piazza, IEEE Member, and Qinglai Wei, IEEE Member
AbstractThe optimization of energy consumption, with con-
sequent costs reduction, is one of the main challenges in present
and future Smart Grid. Of course this has to occur keeping
the living comfort for the end-user unchanged. In this work an
approach based on the Mixed-Integer Linear Programming
paradigm, able to provide an optimal solution in terms of tasks
power consumption and management of renewable resources,
is developed. The proposed algorithm yields an optimal task
scheduling under dynamic electrical constraints, ensuring at the
same time the thermal comfort according to the user needs. On
purpose, a suitable thermal model based on heat-pump usage has
been considered in the framework. Some computer simulations
using real data have been performed and obtained results conrm
the efciency and robustness of the algorithm, also in terms of
achievable money saving.
Index TermsOptimal Home Energy Management, Energy
and Task scheduling, Mixed-Integer Linear Programming, Dy-
namic Residential Scenarios, Thermal Comfort, Smart Grid.
I. INTRODUCTION
S
MART grid of the future will provide a better energy
management reducing its waste and including renewable
resources both in local and wide areas [1][9]. To reach
this goal Computational Intelligence (CI) can be applied to
smart grid in many ways [10][12] using different techniques
like Articial Neural Networks (ANN) [14], [15], Fuzzy
Logic systems [16], [17], Evolutionary Computation [18], [19],
Dynamic Programming [20][22]. The attention in this paper
is focused on the micro-grid level, in which on the demand
side management a customer can achieve energy management
[23][25]. Both in a domestic and residential scenarios the
challenge consists in providing an optimal scheduling of the
tasks to be fullled considering both the deadlines imposed
by the user and the conditions related to energy and cost
characterizing the working horizon. The term task denotes in
this context the work done by an electrical appliance within a
certain time period.
During the years, several techniques have been developed to
accomplish energy or task scheduling: deterministic methods
[26], Particle Swarm Optimization [27], [28], Fuzzy Algo-
rithms [29], Articial Neural Networks [30], and also Dynamic
Programming techniques [31][34], but they all consider task
and energy scheduling separately. In this paper a Mixed-
Integer Linear Programming (MILP) approach that provides
F. De Angelis, M. Boaro, D. Fuselli, S. Squartini and F. Piazza are with
Dipartimento di Ingegneria dellInformazione, Universit` a Politecnica delle
Marche, Ancona, Italy.
Q. Wei is with the State Key Laboratory of Management and Control for
Complex Systems, Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences,
Beijing, China.
jointly an optimal task and energy scheduling for smart homes
is proposed. Obviously a joint scheduling can give high perfor-
mances results because both the energy and the task aspect are
optimized concurrently, differently from a simple scheduling
operation, in which just a single aspect is considered. The
present work moves from the results obtained in [35] and new
features are proposed and included within the optimization
procedure in order to make it effectively operating in realistic
smart home scenarios. Such features regards both the task
management issue and the possibility to suitably cope with
the user thermal requirements.
About tasks, they can have predetermined inactivity period
for example during sleeping period if they are noisy; also
linked tasks are considered in the algorithm in order to
consider cycle-works (e.g. washing machine), so a sequence
made of sub-tasks is considered with a dened order among
themselves. Furthermore a based on priority policy has been
realized, so the system discards the processes with low priority
whenever it can not supply all the load demand. Differently
from [35], the supposed residential scenario is composed
by more storage systems and renewable energy sources, and
plug-in vehicles (PHV) are included within the optimization
procedure: electric vehicle can be considered as a storage
system, from which energy can be used to meet the load
demand, under some customer specics and bounds.
Regarding the thermal aspects of the scenario, many proce-
dures have been adopted in order to optimize the thermody-
namic behaviour of a house, given some comfort requirements
and a heating model [36], [37]. Until now no attempt has been
made to optimize the home energy management considering
the electrical and thermal constraints in a unique framework:
in this work both the electrical and thermal aspects are solved
concurrently within the same optimization algorithm. Another
relevant difference from [35] is that also a dynamic procedure
has been realized with success to face real-case optimization
problems, both in domestic and residential environment. Con-
sidering all the features listed, the automatic system has to
take decisions in order to nd the best solution in terms of
costs and renewable available energy, knowing task parameters
and respecting the electrical, thermal and temporal constraints
decided by the customer.
Here is the outline of the paper: the analytical issues of the
implemented algorithm are discussed in Section II, whereas
the related operational aspects, for the static and dynamic case
studies, are pointed out in Section III. Section IV deals with
the conducted computer simulations whereas Section V draws
the work conclusions.
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IEEE TRANSACTION ON INDUSTRIAL INFORMATICS - SPECIAL SECTION ON SMART GRID 2
II. THE PROPOSED ALGORITHM
The implemented algorithm is based on the Mixed-Integer
Linear Programming (MILP) paradigm, which represents an
evolution of the standard linear programming (LP): the
mathematical theory is explained in detail in [39], [40].
A. Notation
The list of used notation is reported as follows.
Indices:
t temporal slot
i task
j house
m storage system
k air ow
Parameters:
houses number of houses
tasks number of tasks
s items number of storage items
flows number of valid ows
T time horizon (number of temporal slots)
Ts
j,i,t
bit equal to 1 when task is on, 0 otherwise
Te
j,i,t
bit equal to 1 when task is off, 0 otherwise
T
start
j,i
earliest starting time decided by the user
T
end
j,i
latest ending time decided by the user
T
j,i
task execution time
T
s,off
start slot for inactivity period
T
e,off
end slot for inactivity period
P
j,i
power consumption (W)
SL
m,t
storage level (Wh)
SL
m,MIN
minimum storage level (Wh)
SL
m,MAX
maximum storage level (Wh)
Pc
m,t
electrical charge (W)
Pd
m,t
electrical discharge (W)

m
efciency
C
t
electricity cost ($cent/kWh)
Cmb storage item maintenance cost ($cent/kWh)
Cs
t
selling price ($cent/kWh)
Stot
t
total renewable resources (W)
S
j,i,t
renewable energy to task (W)
Sst
m,t
renewable energy to storage item (W)
Sex
t
renewable energy exported to grid (W)
Shp
j,t
renewable energy to heat pump (W)

j,k
energy/air-ow ratio (Wh/Kg)
continuous air ow from heat pump (Kg/h)

j,k
discrete air ow from heat pump (Kg/h)
b
j,k,t
bit for validating only one ow at each slot t
c air heat capacity at constant pressure at 273 K

hp
heat pump temperature (

C)

i
indoor temperature (

C)

o
outdoor temperature (

C)

target temperature (

C)

i
initial indoor temperature (

C)

MIN
minimum temperature (

C)

MAX
maximum temperature (

C)

heat
target temperature in heating case (

C)

cool
target temperature in cooling case (

C)
L1 house length (m)
L2 house width (m)
L3 house height (m)
roof pitch (degrees)
k
l
house loss factor ()
M
air
air mass in the house (Kg)
L thick of walls or windows (m)
thermal conductivity ()
A area covered by walls or windows (m
2
)
B. Cost function
The cost function used here is equivalent to the one reported
in [35]. It can be shown indeed that, if the same electrical
devices are considered, one can be derived from the other
by means some simple algebra calculations. The difference
just stands on the way to organize the various terms within
the function, which in authors opinion, results to be more
accessible and facilitate the reader understanding. Moreover,
taking into account the innovative contribution of this work,
the terms related to the thermal model are included in the
present cost function and not in the one proposed in [35].
From these premises it follows that the cost function to be
minimized is:
Q =
T

t=1
_
houses

j=1
_
tasks

i=1
_
w
j,i,t
P
j,i
S
j,i,t
_
C
t
_
+
+
sitems

m=1
_
_
Pc
m,t

m
Sst
m,t
_
C
t

Pd
m,t

m
(C
t
Cmb)
_
+
Sex
t
Cs
t
+
_
flows

k=1
(
j,k

j,k
b
j,k,t
) Shp
j,t
_
C
t
_
(1)
where w
j,i,t
= w
j,i,t1
+Ts
j,i,t
Te
j,i,t
is a bit that shows
if the i-th task of j-th house is on or off. The total renewable
energy Stot
t
is divided into the four parts S
j,i,t
, Sst
m,t
, Sex
t
and Shp
j,t
(devoted to task execution, storage systems, grid
and heat pump respectively) to have a clear view of all energy
ows dealt by the optimization algorithm. In this way all these
quantities can be monitored before and after the scheduling,
thus facilitating the understanding of how the overall amount
of renewable energy is used within the optimization horizon.
C. Task constraints
Starting and ending time for each task:
T
end
j,i
Tj,i

tT
start
j,i
Ts
j,i,t
= 1
T
end
j,i

tT
start
j,i
+Tj,i
Te
j,i,t
= 1 j, i
(2)
Continuity for each task:
Ts
j,i,t
= Te
j,i,t+Tj,i
j, i, T
start
j,i
t T
end
j,i
T
j,i
(3)
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IEEE TRANSACTION ON INDUSTRIAL INFORMATICS - SPECIAL SECTION ON SMART GRID 3
On/off for each task in every temporal slot:
w
j,i,t
= w
j,i,t1
+Ts
j,i,t
Te
j,i,t
j, i, 1 t T (4)
Some tasks must be off during some slots (e.g.: during
sleeping period):
T
e,off

=T
s,off
(T1)1
Ts
j,i,t
= 0 for some j and i
(5)
Consecutive tasks (k-th task is done before i-th task for
the j-th house, e.g. washing machine cycles):
M

t=T
start
j,i
Ts
j,i,t
+ (M T
start
j,i
+ 1)Te
j,k,M+1
M+
T
start
j,i
+1, i = k j, T
start
j,i
M T
end
j,i
T
j,i
(6)
D. Storage system constraints
Storage level for each item in the system:
SL
m,MIN
SL
m,t
SL
m,MAX
1 t T (7)
Electricity stored in a storage item at time t:
SL
m,t
= SL
m,t1
+Pc
m,t

m

Pd
m,t

m
1 t T
(8)
Final electricity stored must be greater or equal to a well
dened quantity:
SL
m,t
SL
m,END
t = T (9)
Charge and discharge rate can not exceed the electrical
charge and discharge limits:
Pc
m,t
Pc
m,MAX
Pd
m,t
Pd
m,MAX
1 t T
(10)
The storage item can discharge a smaller or equal quantity
to load only when at least one task is on:
1 t T
houses

j=1
_
tasks

i=1
(w
j,i,t
P
j,i
S
j,i,t
)+
+
flows

k=1
(
j,k

j,k
b
j,k,t
) Shp
j,t
_

sitems

m=1
Pd
m,t
(11)
E. Energy constraints
The four elements into which the total renewable energy
is splitted must satisfy the following contraint (1 t
T):
houses

j=1
_tasks

i=1
S
j,i,t
+Shp
j,t
_
+
sitems

m=1
Sst
m,t
+Sex
t
Stot
t
(12)
Imported energy from the grid can not exceed a certain
maximum allowed value E
MAX
:
j, 1 t T
numtask

i=1
(w
j,i,t
P
j,i
S
j,i,t
)+
+
sitems

m=1
(Pc
m,t
Sst
m,t
Pd
m,t
)+
+
flows

k=1
(
j,k

j,k
b
j,k,t
) Shp
j,t
E
MAX
(13)
Renewables for a task can not exceed the task power:
w
j,i,t
P
j,i
S
j,i,t
0 i, j, 1 t T (14)
Renewable energy for storage can not exceed the storage
system charge:
Pc
m,t
Sst
m,t
0 m, 1 t T (15)
Renewable energy can not exceed the heater consump-
tion:
flows

k=1
(
j,k

j,k
b
j,k,t
) Shp
j,t
0 j, t (16)
F. Thermal model and constraints
The heat balance model of a house is based on the following
formulas, based and derived from [41][43]:
dQ
hp
dt
= c (
hp

i
) (17)
dQ
loss
dt
= k
l
(
i

o
) (18)
where (17) is the heating or cooling energy deriving from heat
pump and (18) is the lost energy. So the indoor temperature
variation is:
d
i
dt
=
1
M
air
c

_
dQ
hp
dt

dQ
loss
dt
_
(19)
M
air
is evaluable thanks to the house geometry. In fact,
computing the volume of the house and knowing the air
density, indoor air mass can be determined as shown in
Section IV. Furthermore k
l
in (18) can be analyzed with an
electric approach, considering all the windows and the walls
in the house as equivalent resistances that satisfy:
R =
L
A
(20)
So a global averaged equivalent resistance is considered:
R
eq
=
1
N
N

i=1
R
i
=
1
k
l
(21)
MILP accepts only constraints consisting of equalities or in-
equalities composed by linear relationship between unknowns,
so to avoid multiplication of them it is necessary to approx-
imate equation (17) considering an averaged value between
the target temperature

and the indoor temperature

i
at the
beginning of optimization, so the (17) becomes:
dQ
hp
dt
= c
_

hp

i
2
_
(22)
It can be shown that this approximation involves a small
negligible error for the indoor temperature. So, according
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IEEE TRANSACTION ON INDUSTRIAL INFORMATICS - SPECIAL SECTION ON SMART GRID 4
to the thermal comfort chosen by the customer, the thermal
constraints are the following:
i

MIN
,
i

MAX
,

heat
or
i

cool
with 1 t T. Since common
air-air heat pump works with a discrete number of air ows,
from the continuous quantity we consider only a discrete
number of admittable values
k
. For this reason in the thermal
model we have the following kind of mapping:

t

flows

k=1
(
k

k
b
k,t
) 1 t T (23)
where b
k,t
is a binary variable which make valid only one
ow value for each temporal slot t, according to the following
constraint:
flows

k=1
b
j,k,t
1 j, 1 t T (24)
Finally our system is modelled, and minimizing the cost
function means minimizing the costs and optimizing the
available energy: the combined energy and task scheduling is
obtained according to the electrical and thermal requirements.
III. OPERATIVE CASES STUDY
A. The Static Case Study
By using the proles of electricity price, temperature and
renewable energy production, and the electrical or thermal
constraints dened by the user over the working horizon, the
algorithm nds the best energy and task scheduling for the
scenario. The proposed cost function (1) is analytically derived
from the function proposed in [35], but in this work it is
written in other way to focus on the different power ows of
renewable energy and to provide a more readible an intuitive
formula. In the algorithm four terms about renewable energies
are considered: S for load demand, Sst for storage system,
Sex to sell to the grid or Shp for the heat pump.
Differently from [35], more storage systems can be included
in the scenario and in the optimization procedure, and a
scheme based on a priority policy is realized to face every
kind of situation: if the system can not supply all the load
demand, this means mathematical solution can not be found
and the convergence can not be reached, then MILP algorithm
restarts discarding step by step the lowest priority task until the
best scheduling is obtained, according to the specic scenario.
Some task features have been added to improve perfor-
mances of [35] in a real case: consequentiality and inactivity.
Tasks can be inactive in some periods chosen by the user
because some of them can be noisy during sleeping period.
With regard to the consequentiality, unlike [35] we consider
more complex task behaviours, because one process can be
splitted in more sub-tasks in order to consider work cycles
(e.g. washing machine or dishwasher) in the correct order
using (6). Also more plug-in vehicles can be considered in the
scenario: electric vehicles can be used as storage systems when
they are connected to the automatic system, so the algorithm
considers these as temporary storage systems, according to
some constraints decided by the end user (e.g. time availability,
stored energy level).
In addition to all these features, differently from a simple
heat storage system like in [35], here a thermal house model
(analytically shown in Section II-F) is considered with all the
comfort constraints decided by the end user, so a complete
optimization framework is realized, including both electrical
and thermal constraints in order to meet the load demand
and the customer comfort, both for domestic and residential
environment (group of houses that share the same system
storages and renewable sources).
B. The Dynamic Case Study
The dynamic optimization can be seen as an external struc-
ture built upon MILP static case. In fact whenever a change in
the scenario occurs (new tasks or conguration modications),
static MILP is recomputed: old constraints are traduced and
added with the new conditions, and both electrical and thermal
tasks parameters are put in a general list in order to trace the
whole states of the processes from the beginning to the end.
As represented in the ow diagram in Fig. 1, when an interrupt
occurs, the system updates all the previous tasks, traces the
amount of time for which a task operated in the past, deletes
from the task list the completed ones, new tasks or plugin
vehicles are eventually added with their parameters, and MILP
algorithm recomputes the new scheduling for the new scenario.
System Running
Start optimization procedure
Interrupt
Update task list
Add/Remove task(s) or plug-in vehicle
YES
NO
Scheduling
Fig. 1. Flow diagram of the system in dynamic case with interrupt
Obviously the algorithm maintains consequentiality of the
tasks and all the constraints related to the electric and thermal
parts between sequential schedules: if a task has been already
started in the previous optimization procedure, now it is forced
to operate for the remaining time slots in order to nish
the process, so the time-continuity and operability between
various MILP algorithms are guaranteed because every time
new equivalent groups of constraints are considered. The
procedure includes also a dynamic work-horizon to allow
completion of tasks, so the necessary longest process duration
is used to launch the script: the work-horizon can be extended
automatically whenever new tasks need it, or can be simply
decreased step by step if the customer is not interested to
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IEEE TRANSACTION ON INDUSTRIAL INFORMATICS - SPECIAL SECTION ON SMART GRID 5
have new optimizations in future. For this dynamic automatic
system, an interrupt occurs when:
schedulable or not-schedulable tasks are added;
a critic task is switched on;
a critic task is switched off;
plug-in vehicle is connected;
plug-in vehicle is disconnected;
forecasted scenario proles change;
the optimization horizon changes.
Whenever one of these seven conditions occurs, there is a
new scheduling. We thus divide tasks in three categories:
schedulable, not-schedulable and critic.
A task is schedulable when the system can choose the process-
ing time: Te
i
Ts
i
> T
i
i. The admitted interval of time
is decided by the user, but obviously the algorithm chooses
when it is more convenient, performing both energy and task
scheduling.
A task is not-schedulable when the system can not locate
its execution within the working horizon, because the task
is constrained to operate exactly in a specic temporal range:
Te
i
Ts
i
= T
i
i, in this case the algorithm performs only
energy scheduling, because the processing window of the task
is already xed by the user.
A task (e.g. television) is critic when the system does not know
the amount of the related execution time, because it depends
on the customer behaviour. The system considers this kind
of task like always on during the working horizon T, so it
performs only energy scheduling and not task scheduling.
Furthermore when a plug-in vehicle is connected, a new
system storage is available in the scenario, so it can be used
to supply the load as well to recharge itself; and if the plug-
in vehicle is disconnected, then the automatic system must
consider the changing in the scenario and restart the opti-
mization procedure, with all the aspects updated. Regarding
the thermal aspect of the problem, the optimization procedure
restarts when there is a not-negligible difference between the
forecasted and real temperature proles. Moreover when the
optimization horizon changes, a refresh of all the parameters
of the system that may vary in time occurs: in this way the
working horizon for the algorithm can be extended in order to
continue task and energy scheduling operations in time, and
new forecasted and more accurate data can be used for the
next scheduling to reach a greater precision especially in the
use of renewable energy.
Such a dynamic extension has been implemented, so the
optimization algorithm can offer solutions step by step, when-
ever a scenario changes in terms of own characteristics. This
results in an overall optimal task and energy scheduling with
remarkable reliability and robustness capabilities, especially in
dynamic and not predictable real cases.
IV. COMPUTER SIMULATIONS
In this section dynamic simulations in one house environ-
ment are presented: the scenario is composed of a photovoltaic
system (equipped with panels having total area A
pv
= 15 m
2
and efciency
pv
= 0.2), one storage system and one heat
pump (air-air type), whose parameters are shown respectively
in Tab. I and Tab. II. Because of the difculty of nding a
complete set of data from a unique source, the solar irradiation
prole I
t
is taken from [44], the outdoor temperature prole
from [45] and the electricity cost from [46], ensuring that there
is temporal coherence in all these considered data.
Algorithm coding and simulations have been carried out in
MATLAB (R2007b - Version 7.5) on a Sony VAIO VGN-
FE31M Intel Core 2 Duo laptop with the following HW
characteristics: T5600 Processor, Supports Enhanced Intel
Speedstep Technology, 1.83 GHz, RAM 1 GB/GO DDR2
(SDRAM) 533 MHz, NVIDIA Geforce Graphic Card Go 7600
with dedicated 128 MB/Mo VRAM.
In performed simulations, the maximum energy that can be
acquired from the grid is 5 kW, the energy selling price is
2.14 dollar cent/kWh and the maintenance cost is Cmb =
0.01 $cent/kWh. According to [47] we can compute the PV
output power as P
pv
= I
t

pv
A
pv
. Moreover, since the
resolution time used in simulations is one hour, Wh and W
agree so we can consider the same unit of measurement both
for energy and power parameters. For the sake of clarity,
the labels used in the following Tables are here listed and
explained:
means that the task must be off
means that the task can be on
means that the task is on
ID denotes an identication number (for tasks and stor-
age systems)
is the storage system efciency
Cp is the maximum capacity of the storage system
Ch
r
is the storage system charge rate (W)
Dh
r
is the storage system discharge rate (W)
SL
0
, SL
e
, SL
min
and SL
max
are the initial, nal,
minimum and maximum state of charge, respectively (W)
R
heat pump
is the amount of renewable energy used for
the heat pump (W)
R
task
is the amount of renewable energy used for tasks
(W)
R
store
is the amount of renewable energy used for the
storage system charge (W)
R
sell
is the amount of renewable energy sold to grid (W)
R
tot
is total amount of renewable energy (W)
En
cost
is the electricity price (cents/kWh)
I
en
is the power acquired from the grid (W)
Load is the actual load demand (W)
TABLE I
STORAGE SYSTEM PARAMETERS
ID SL
0
SLe SL
min
SLmax Cp Chr Dhr
kW
1 100% 2 1 0.5 4.5 5 2 2
Both for heating and cooling cases, an heat pump with 4
different functioning levels is chosen, in order to represent the
most common device of this type. The heat pump parameters
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IEEE TRANSACTION ON INDUSTRIAL INFORMATICS - SPECIAL SECTION ON SMART GRID 6
TABLE II
HEAT PUMP PARAMETERS
Air flow rate (Kg/h) Power (W) (Wh/Kg)
Heating
426 400 1066
690 891 775
868 1550 560
1148 2080 551
Cooling
488 450 1086
690 920 750
868 1500 579
1148 1740 659
are shown in Tab. II, where for each valid value of air
ow rate and power the value is reported, that is the
relationship which binds the air ow and the consumption.
For the simulations we consider a specic house model, whose
geometry and parameters are reported in Tab. III.
TABLE III
HOUSE GEOMETRY AND PARAMETERS
House parameters V alue Unit
House length (L1) 30 m
House width (L2) 10 m
House height (L3) 4 m
Roof pitch () 40 degrees
Number of windows 6
Height of windows 1 m
Width of windows 1 m
Thick of windows 0.1 m
Thick of walls 0.2 m
Thermal coefficient of windows 2808 J/(hrm

C)
Thermal coefficient of walls 136.8 J/(hrm

C)
Considering the values reported in Tab III, the volume of the
house is computed in the following way:
V
house
= L1 L2 L3 + tan
_


180
_
L1 L2 (25)
So, the inside air mass can be calculated with the formula
M
air
= V
house

air
, where
air
is the air density at sea
level (1.225 kg/m
3
). Using windows and walls parameters
shown in Tab. III, the equivalent house resistance R
eq
can be
computed thanks to (20) and (21) formulas.
In order to face both the heating and cooling cases, two
different simulations are executed with the same scenario
but with different outdoor temperatures (summer and winter).
In Tab. IV we propose the initial scenario for the entire
simulation. Regarding the ID numbers, the rst digit refers
to the process number, and the second digit to the subtask
number; for storage systems just one digit is enough.
For the initial scenario in Tab. IV we consider processes
(washing machine, dishwasher) that can be seen as a sequence
of sub-tasks with a specic order among themselves. After the
rst scheduling we suppose that two interrupts occur in the
simulation as reported in Tab. V. With the rst interrupt we
TABLE IV
TASKS AND USER CONSTRAINTS
Tstart T
end
Tasks P
(W)
ID T
(hour)
Wash machine 8:00 13:00 3 800 11 1
1000 12 1
900 13 1
Cooker oven 9:00 13:00 1 1500 21 2
Dishwasher 14:00 17:00 2 1000 31 1
2000 32 1
suppose that the customer comes back home at 12:00 (slot s5
in Tab. VIII), so PHV can be charged or used until 16:00 (slot
s8 in Tab. IX) to meet partially the load demand. Furthermore
with the second interrupt TV and PC are powered on from
17:00 (slot s10 in Tab. X) onwards.
TABLE V
INTERRUPTS TABLE
ID Type Tstart T
end
Tasks P
(W)
T
(hour)
PHV 2 12:00 16:00

4
TV 41 critic 17:00

1 200

PC 51 critic 17:00

1 150

The plug-in vehicle (PHV) is integrated in the scenario
conguration as a storage system, and its parameters are
reported in Table VI.
TABLE VI
PHV PARAMETERS
ID SL
0
SLe SL
min
SLmax Cp Chr Dhr
kW
2 100% 3 6 2 9 10 2 2
Let us consider 8 a.m as starting time (rst temporal slot s1)
and for the rst simulation the outdoor temperature in Illinois
(US) on the third day of December 2011 (data set taken from
[45]): all the rst simulation results in Watt are reported (for
each slot s1, s2, etc.) in Tables VIII, IX and X.
At each interrupt (highlighted as the underlined and bold col-
umn in the tables) the automatic system recomputes the static
MILP updating both electrical and thermal old constraints with
the new ones. Furthermore it takes decisions in order to nd
the best solution in terms of costs and renewable available
energy, respecting the new electrical, thermal and temporal
constraints decided by the customer. It must be noticed that
continuity between different schedulings is maintained and
previous temporal constraints are updated and still valid for
the next optimization stage.
As shown in the tables, the optimization procedure makes
the tasks on when it is more convenient in terms of renewable
energy or electricity cost, and the scheduling proles consists
of distributed tasks over the time (within the admitted range).
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IEEE TRANSACTION ON INDUSTRIAL INFORMATICS - SPECIAL SECTION ON SMART GRID 7
2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
18
20
22
24
26
Temporal Slots
T
e
m
p
e
r
a
t
u
r
e

(

C
)
Target temperature
Outdoor temperature
Indoor temperature (with optimizer)
Upper bound temperature
Indoor temperature (without optimizer)
Fig. 2. Temperature proles: heating case, 3
rd
December 2011, Illinois (US)
Tab. X clearly shows that critic tasks are considered always
on during the working horizon: the system does not know the
amount of the related processing times, because these tasks
depend on the customer behaviour. This whole simulation can
be extended to a building scope, in which more apartments
share the same renewable sources, but different local tasks
must be accomplished: some related simulation results are not
reported for the sake of conciseness.
Regarding the temperature proles, Fig. 2 shows that user
constraints are respected, so the thermal comfort chosen by
the customer is satised in terms of valid temperature range
(minimum and maximum values). The indoor temperature
prole that appears in Fig. 2 seems to be smaller than the
minimum valid value in certain temporal slots: this depends on
the approximation introduced with (22) in the thermal model
of the house in order to make linear all the thermal constraints
for the optimization procedure in MILP. Anyway the greatest
error is about 0.5

C, and for this reason it does not affect the
fulllment of the requirements. In Fig. 2 and Fig. 3 also the
indoor temperature in the case without optimization is plotted:
there are some differences with the case with optimization, but
the trend is the same. If we compute the Mean Square Error
(MSE) among the indoor and target temperatures for both the
cases, we verify that not only the performance index is similar,
but it is even better in terms of thermal constraints in the MILP
optimized case, like shown in Tab. VII.
TABLE VII
MSE COMPARISON [

C
2
]
Functionality MSE
(with optimizer)
MSE
(without optimizer)
Heating 3.3048 3.3897
Cooling 22.5843 23.1488
Considering the imported and exported energy towards the
grid, dynamic MILP optimization procedure provides a total
cost of 0.69 $. If MILP optimization and the storage system are
missing, the tasks start in the rst valid slot for the customer
(according to the available maximum load) and all the renew-
ables are sold to the grid; furthermore there is no optimization
for the house heating too, and only a thermostat controls
the heat pump just whenever the temperature measured with
sensors is below the target temperature; regarding the plug-in
vehicle a case in which it is always charged with the maximum
2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18
8
10
12
14
16
18
20
22
24
26
28
30
Temporal slots
T
e
m
p
e
r
a
t
u
r
e

(

C
)
Target temperature
Outdoor temperature
Indoor temperature (with optimizer)
Lower bound temperature
Indoor temperature (without optimizer)
Fig. 3. Temperature proles: cooling case, 10
th
August 2011, Illinois (US)
charge rate is considered: in this case the total cost is 1.39 $.
So, using dynamic procedure a cost reduction of 50.4 % is
achieved.
In addition to the heating case, also the cooling case has
been simulated: we consider the same scenario described
before but the outdoor temperature is taken from Illinois (US)
on the tenth day of August 2011 [45]. Without reporting the
results in detail, the dynamic procedure provides a total cost of
0.57 $, and without the MILP optimization the cost is 1.19 $,
so a cost reduction of 52.1 % is achieved also in this case.
It is clear that also in summer periods the MILP procedure
provides an optimal task, energy and thermal scheduling,
offering the indoor temperature comfort within the temperature
range established by the customer, as shown in Fig. 3. In
both addressed case studies, the required time for the entire
algorithm computation is about 1.28 s, which is indeed a small
value if compared with the typical 1-hour time resolution of
the simulated scenario.
V. CONCLUSIONS
In this work a MILP based energy management system for
smart home scenarios has been described and evaluated. The
optimization framework is general enough to deal with real
situations in which renewable energy sources, electrical stor-
age systems and domestic thermal model have been suitably
integrated in order to provide a given comfort level according
to the customer needs. The proposed algorithm always nds
out the best solution according to the imposed constraints; it
also includes a policy priority to yield exible optimization
scheduling. Moreover it is able to work not only in static but
also in dynamic cases maintaining the task continuity and the
thermal comfort between consequent schedulings.
Some computer simulations have been performed on pur-
pose and related results allowed the authors to positively con-
clude about the effectiveness of the idea and its suitability in
presence of time-variant conditions, also from a pure monetary
perspective. Moreover, the computational time required by
the optimization algorithm is negligible with respect to time
resolution of 1-hour used in the simulated scenario (as in most
contributions in the literature): this property allows the user
having a relevant exibility in selecting both longer working
horizons and lower time resolution values.
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IEEE TRANSACTION ON INDUSTRIAL INFORMATICS - SPECIAL SECTION ON SMART GRID 8
TABLE VIII
FIRST SCHEDULING
ID Priority Link P T s1 s2 s3 s4 s5 s6 s7 s8 s9 s10
Task 1 11 3 800 1

Task 2 12 3 after ID 11 1000 1

Task 3 13 3 after ID 12 900 1

Task 4 21 1 1500 2

Task 5 31 3 1000 1

Task 6 32 3 after ID 31 1200 1

Heat pump 891 891 400 891 400 400 400 400 400 0
Ch 1 0 0 0 0 0 851 0 0 212 0
Dh 1 885 528 44 0 43 0 18 544 0 0
SL 1 1115 587 543 543 500 1351 1333 788 1000 1000
R
task
0 0 828 270 857 0 1000 656 0 0
Rstore
0 0 0 0 0 851 0 0 212 0
R
sell
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
R
heat pump
6 363 0 891 400 400 191 400 400 0
Rtot
6 363 828 1161 1257 1251 1191 1056 612 0
Encost
6.58 5.70 5.61 5.60 6.12 5.99 5.09 5.37 5.53 6.53
Ien
0 0 1828 2230 0 0 191 0 0 0
Load 891 891 2700 3391 1300 400 1400 1600 400 0
TABLE IX
SCHEDULING AFTER THE FIRST INTERRUPT
ID Priority Link P T s5 s6 s7 s8 s9 s10 s11 s12 s13 s14
Task 1 13 3 900 1

Task 2 31 3 1000 1

Task 3 32 3 after ID 31 1200 1

Heat pump 400 400 400 0 400 400 400 400 400 400
Ch 1 0 0 1681 0 212 0 0 0 0 500
Dh 1 43 0 0 293 0 400 400 400 400 0
SL 1 500 500 2181 1888 2100 1700 1300 900 500 1000
Ch 2 2 0 851 2000 149
Dh 2 2 0 0 0 0
SL 2 2 3000 3851 5851 6000
R
task
857 0 0 907 0 0 0 0 0 0
Rstore
0 851 791 149 212 0 0 0 0 0
R
sell
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
R
heat pump
400 400 400 0 400 0 0 0 0 0
Rtot
1257 1251 1191 1056 612 0 0 0 0 0
Encost
6.12 5.99 5.09 5.37 5.53 6.53 6.66 6.74 6.97 4.72
Ien
0 0 3890 0 0 0 0 0 0 900
Load 1300 400 1400 1200 400 400 400 400 400 400
TABLE X
SCHEDULING AFTER THE SECOND INTERRUPT
ID Priority Link P T s10 s11 s12 s13 s14 s15 s16 s17 s18 s19
Task 1 41 5 200 9

Task 2 51 4 150 9

Heat pump 400 400 400 400 400 891 400 400 400 400
Ch 1 650 0 0 0 0 0 0 750 0 500
Dh 1 0 750 750 750 0 0 0 0 750 0
SL 1 2750 2000 1250 500 500 500 500 1250 500 1000
R
task
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Rstore
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
R
sell
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
R
heat pump
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Rtot
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Encost
6.53 6.66 6.74 6.97 4.72 4.26 3.34 2.50 2.91 2.35
Ien
1400 0 0 0 750 1241 750 1500 0 900
Load 750 750 750 750 750 1241 750 750 750 400
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IEEE TRANSACTION ON INDUSTRIAL INFORMATICS - SPECIAL SECTION ON SMART GRID 9
Future efforts will be mainly targeted to improve the overall
optimization framework, specially from a thermal point of
view. In particular, a more complex thermal model which con-
siders the heat ows exchanged between multiple apartments
close to each other (as in a building) will be implemented.
Furthermore, the presence of a water heating system operated
by air-water heat pump will be included as well.
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This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication.
IEEE TRANSACTION ON INDUSTRIAL INFORMATICS - SPECIAL SECTION ON SMART GRID 10
Francesco De Angelis was born in Macerata, Italy,
on June 1987. He received the Bachelor Degree
in 2009 and the Master Degree with honours in
2012 in Electronic Engineering at Universit` a Po-
litecnica delle Marche, Ancona, Italy. He carried
out his MSc thesis at the Institute of Automation,
Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, under the
supervision of Prof. Derong Liu and Prof. Francesco
Piazza. The work was about the development of
advanced algorithms and techniques for optimal en-
ergy management in smart home environments. He
is also author and coauthor of several peer-reviewed papers, and his current
research is focused on the development of complex algorithms and methods
for improving environmental pre-diagnosis and performance of industrial
processes in terms of energy requirements.
Matteo Boaro was born in Ancona, Italy on Febru-
ary 1987. He received his BSc degree in 2009
and his MSc in 2012, both in Electronic Engi-
neering from Universit` a Politecnica delle Marche
(UNIVPM), Ancona, Italy. His research interests are
focused on energy management and optimisation in
domestic environments, both from the electric and
thermal point of view.
Danilo Fuselli was born in Recanati, Italy, on
August 1987. He has got the Master Degree with
honors in Electronic Engineering from Universit` a
Politecnica delle Marche, Italy, in 2012. His the-
sis work was achieved at Institute of Automation,
Chinese Academy of Science in Beijing, China
under the supervision of Prof. Derong Liu and Prof.
Francesco Piazza (October 2011 - March 2012).
Fuselli is author and coauthor of several international
conference papers and his current research interests
are in development and application of advanced
computational algorithms for energy problems in smart home environment,
with special attention on linear and complex systems optimization.
Stefano Squartini (Senior Member IEEE and Mem-
ber AES/ISCA) was born in Ancona, Italy, on 1976.
He got the Italian Laurea with honors in electronic
engineering from Polytechnic University of Marche
(UnivPM), Italy, in 2002. He got his PhD degree
(2005) and also a PostDoc fellowship (June 2006-
October 2007) at UnivPM. He currently works as
Assistant Professor in Circuit Theory at Department
of Information Engineering (UnivPM). He is one
of the founding members of the research group
3MediaLabs and he actively participated to various
(funded) regional, national and european projects on multimedia Digital Signal
Processing (DSP). He is author and coauthor of several international scientic
peer-reviewed articles. He is Associate Editor for IEEE Transactions on Neural
Networks and Learning Systems (since 2010) and part of the Cognitive
Computation Editorial Board (2011). His research interests are in the area
of digital signal processing and machine learning, with special focus on
speech/audio processing and energy management.
Francesco Piazza (Member IEEE) was born in Jesi,
Italy, on February 1957. He got the Italian Lau-
rea with honors in electronic engineering from the
University of Ancona, Italy, in 1981. From 1981 to
1983 he worked on image processing at the Physics
Department. In 1983 he worked at the Olivetti OSAI
software development center (Ivrea, Italy). In 1985
he joined the Department of Electronics and Auto-
matics of the University of Ancona. Currently he is
Full Professor of Electrical Science at the Universit` a
Politecnica delle Marche in Italy. He is author or
coauthor of more than 300 international papers. His current research interests
are in the areas of circuit theory and digital signal processing including
adaptive DSP algorithms and circuits, articial neural networks, speech and
audio processing.
Qingali Wei received the B.S. degree in automa-
tion, the M.S. degree in control theory and control
engineering, and the Ph.D. degree in control theory
and control engineering, from the Northeastern Uni-
versity, Shenyang, China, in 2002, 2005, and 2008,
respectively. From 20092011, he was a postdoctoral
fellow with State Key Laboratory of Management
and Control for Complex Systems, Institute of Au-
tomation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing,
China. He is currently an assistant research fellow
of the institute. His research interests include neural-
networks-based control, adaptive dynamic programming, optimal control,
nonlinear system and their industrial applications.