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nPlug: An Autonomous Peak Load Controller

DSpace at IIT Bombay

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Title nPlug: An Autonomous Peak Load Controller
 
Creator GANU, T
SEETHARAM, DP
ARYA, V
HAZRA, J
SINHA, D
KUNNATH, R
DE SILVA, LC
HUSAIN, SA
KALYANARAMAN, S
 
Subject Smart Plug
Demand Response
Peak Loads
Scheduling
Multiple Access
 
Description The Indian electricity sector, despite having the world's fifth largest installed capacity, suffers from a 12.9% peaking shortage. This shortage could be alleviated, if a large number of deferrable loads, particularly the high powered ones, could be moved from on-peak to off-peak times. However, conventional Demand Side Management (DSM) strategies may not be suitable for India as the local conditions usually favor inexpensive solutions with minimal dependence on the pre-existing infrastructure. In this work, we present a completely autonomous DSM controller called the nPlug(1). nPlug is positioned between the wall socket and deferrable load(s) such as water heaters, washing machines, and electric vehicles. nPlugs combine local sensing and analytics to infer peak periods as well as supply-demand imbalance conditions. They schedule attached appliances in a decentralized manner to alleviate peaks whenever possible without violating the requirements of consumers. nPlugs do not require any manual intervention by the end consumer nor any communication infrastructure nor any enhancements to the appliances or the power grids. Some of nPlug's capabilities are demonstrated using experiments on a combination of synthetic and real data collected from plug-level energy monitors. Our results indicate that nPlug can be an effective and inexpensive technology to address the peaking shortage. This technology could potentially be integrated into millions of future deferrable loads: appliances, electric vehicle (EV) chargers, heat pumps, water heaters, etc.
 
Publisher IEEE-INST ELECTRICAL ELECTRONICS ENGINEERS INC
 
Date 2014-10-16T13:51:11Z
2014-10-16T13:51:11Z
2013
 
Type Article
 
Identifier IEEE JOURNAL ON SELECTED AREAS IN COMMUNICATIONS, 31(7)1205-1218
http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/JSAC.2013.130705
http://dspace.library.iitb.ac.in/jspui/handle/100/15711
 
Language en