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Design and Implementation of Intelligent Energy Distribution Management with Photovoltaic System
Insung Hong, Byeongkwan Kang, and Sehyun Park, Member, IEEE
Abstract As increasing power consumption is becoming a huge problem, renewable energy has been highlighted recently. Many companies and research centers study this new sustainable energy, and various products have appeared to the public. However, this kind of researches concentrates on the elemental technologies, and now a management system is needed to manage these technologies to maximize energy efficiency. In this paper, we propose the system of Intelligent Energy Distribution Management (iEDM) to monitor fastchanging environmental variables and manage solar power flexibly. Compared with normal utility interactive systems, the iEDM improves the energy efficiency up to 5.6 percent. 1 Index Terms Energy Efficiency, Photovoltaic System, Renewable Energy, ZigBee

I. INTRODUCTION These days, even though there are many new IT services, these cause another types of problems. There are increases in the diversity of services and service quality, but there is also much higher energy consumption. Furthermore, recent environmentfriendly technologies have some problems with efficiency, and it is still premature to achieve any greatly positive effect. At this point in time, renewable energy coincides with sustainable growth. There are many studies and commercial products involving photovoltaic and wind power, and these have significant roles in propagating environment-friendly technologies. In case of electric cars, meaningful, decreases in energy consumption cannot be achieved since fossil fuel is simply converted into electricity. Meaningful change means that each car no longer consumes fossil fuel and every thermoelectric power plant has to make more electricity to afford cars energy needs. Moreover, a huge infrastructure of electricity stations on every street is needed, and it is difficult to catch up with the fuel efficiency of fossil cars immediately. Due to these technical troubles, the importance of renewable energy is getting bigger. In addition, the power market would
This research was supported by the MKE(The Ministry of Knowledge Economy), Korea, under the HNRC(Home Network Research Center) ITRC(Information Technology Research Center) support program supervised by the NIPA(National IT Industry Promotion Agency (NIPA-2010-C109010110010) and by the Human Resources Development of the Korea Institute of Energy Technology Evaluation and Planning (KETEP) grant funded by the Korea government Ministry of Knowledge Economy (20104010100570). Insung Hong is with the School of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Chung-Ang University, Seoul, Korea (e-mail: axlrose11421@wm.cau.ac.kr). Byeongkwan Kang is with the School of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Chung-Ang University, Seoul, Korea (e-mail: byeongkwan@wm.cau.ac.kr). Sehyun Park is with the School of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Chung-Ang University, Seoul, Korea. (e-mail: shpark@cau.ac.kr) Contributed Paper Manuscript received 04/15/12 Current version published 06/22/12 Electronic version published 06/22/12.
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become more important, and it is expected that the influence of renewable energy as sustainable growth will be much larger with the Smart Grid. However, it is not easy to be connected to commercial electricity in these kind of generating systems, because each type of renewable energy such as solar and wind power, is slightly different and needs to be managed [1]. Furthermore, renewable energy can provide almost indefinite power but it is hardly expected to be stable [2]. Related solutions are being developed and commercialized by many companies but these products have a passive property. That is, these kinds of solutions need to include intelligent management because of passive operation according to hourly variation or battery status. For example, even though there are various variables such as future power demands, generation status depending on weather conditions, and current battery status, current solutions do not consider these variables, so it is hard to expect high efficiency [3]. Therefore, for much higher efficiency of renewable energy, an intelligent system is needed to monitor these statuses and provide proper management services. In this paper, we propose an intelligent energy management system with a photovoltaic system. In other words, according to each environment, it monitors various variables, and performs optimal energy management to maximize efficiency. We designed Intelligent Energy Distribution Management (iEDM) middleware, implemented it in a test bed, and verified its performance on how efficiently it manages energy. Moreover, we also design two different management methods according to service types. To help understand the study trends of generation systems and photovoltaic systems, section II reviews the characteristics of photovoltaic systems and analyzes the need for energy management systems. Section III describes the middleware architecture of iEDM and the two analysis methods, and Section IV and V shows the implementation of this system and verify its efficiency. In the last section, concluding remarks are made. II. RELATED WORKS Renewable energy systems such as photovoltaic power generation, wind power generation and fuel cells are receiving a huge attention globally. Eco-friendly power generation is the best feature of renewable energy systems. Renewable energy systems emit no pollution into the atmosphere when they generate electricity. However, most power plants such as thermal power generation and nuclear power generation plants have produced most of the power supply. Thermal power plants emit the carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, and nuclear power plants have potential danger and discharge nuclear wastes. On the other hand, renewable energy systems are very clean.

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Although renewable energy power generation unit cost is more expensive than fossil fuel generation [4], this type of generation will replace the existing power plants because it is an inexhaustible resource. Therefore, it is considered as the key solution to solve various energy problems. Renewable energy has some disadvantages. Thermal plants and nuclear plants can provide steady output power, but the renewable power plants such as photovoltaic and wind power systems cannot always maintain steady power, depending on the season, hourly variation and weather conditions. In general, a photovoltaic power system generates maximum power at noon. In the case of a wind power system, it generates minimum power at noon compared with in the morning or at night [5]. According to time variation, the efficiency of renewable energy makes a huge difference. Furthermore, it is difficult to expect steady generation output because of insolation and wind velocity factors, which are changing every hour. Therefore, the renewable energy is required to store unsteady generated energy in energy storage systems [6]. Nevertheless, a renewable energy system is needed to improve energy efficiency through efficient management considering charging periods and times for use, because of limitations of storage capacity. An inverter system is also required to use stored or generated energy with the existing electrical grid. First of all, the characteristics of unsteady output power in the renewable power generation systems cause some problems with output voltage and frequency control. This problem is the most significant problem to solve to connect renewable energy systems to the existing power grid [7]. A high-efficiency inverter and a high-capacity energy storage system maintain the output voltage and frequency stably on equal terms with the power grid network [8]-[10]. Therefore, high-efficiency inverters and the high-capacity energy storage systems are necessary to connect to the power grid. Reference [11] shows the high-efficiency inverters. This study shows a prototype inverter having 96.5% energy efficiency. It shows that the power generated through a solar panel is converted to lossless output power. Reference [12] proposes an operation system for an inverter in grid-connected mode and stand-alone mode. The proposed inverter generates stable output voltage and frequency in two modes. Reference [13] shows research on single-phase inverter control techniques in a micro-grid. The proposed inverter controls the active power and the reactive power that is supplied to the micro-grid from the renewable energy source. Then, the result shows that it can be supplied to the stable power in micro-grid. Reference [14] describes the power quality control strategy of a grid-connected inverter when the distributed power sources such as photovoltaic and wind generation systems are connected to the power network. Through these studies, various types of inverters have been developed and researched to minimize energy loss in the energy conversion process. However, as described above, there are considered to be many variables to provide steady generation output. In case of photovoltaic power systems, weather and season have a critical influence on the amount of generation [15][16]. Moreover, most renewable energy systems require storage systems. However, the storage systems have their own limitations, and are not easy to install

on a large-scale from the perspective of return of investment. In this paper, we propose a management system to maximize the efficiency of a photovoltaic power system in application's aspect. The combination of element technologies of renewable energy with commercial electricity result in high efficiency and positive results as described above. However, while research on the element technologies have been studied well, studies on energy management with renewable energy are not relatively developed. In case of on-grid photovoltaic systems connected to commercial electricity grids directly through inverters like in figure 1, power consumption can be decreased in buildings or homes, but there could also be energy loss when power consumption is very low or electricity price are cheap, and vice versa. To maximize the efficiency, an intelligent management system is needed not only to monitor the whole system but also to perform optimal management according to ever-changing conditions such as weather, season, and power consumption.

Fig. 1. Structure of General Photovoltaic System

III. SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE The most important purpose of the iEDM is to determine how efficiently generated power from solar panels can be used. For this purpose, iEDM checks the status of a solar batteries charge and infers future power consumption by using specific methods to use solar power. iEDM decides the time to use stored energy in a battery by using power information, the residual amount of stored energy, and web information. For example, iEDM considers weather, which affects the efficiency of photovoltaic panels, and power consumption, which is changing every hour, and decides the best time to use the stored energy. The structure of the iEDM consists of three main parts: the Power Management System (PMS), which manages each node and performs total energy management in the upper layer; the Light Weight Power Management System (LWPMS) and Repeater, which manage each node and deal with tasks in the PMS for distributed processing; and the Flexible Power Monitoring Device (FPMD) [16] and Power Monitoring Device (PMD), which play the role of sensor nodes to collect power consumption data. As described above, the PMS collects information from the LWPMS, manages the whole system, and provides the collected information to users. The LWPMS has a structure of light weight middleware suitable for smaller spaces, and excludes the Rule-based Engine and Knowledge Repository which are included in the PMS. Depending on the structure or

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Fig. 2. Middleware Architecture and System Structure of the iEDM

size of the places in which iEDM is implemented, LWPMS can gather the information of the PMD and FPMD directly, but it is also possible to gather it through Repeater. The Power Monitoring Device (PMD) has three power sockets to measure power consumption of devices, and a ZigBee network module. By using these, it can transmit the power consumption data or receive a control signal to control the power of devices through ZigBee. The iEDM collects power consumption data from the PMD and FPMD. The entire system architecture is as follows. The purple area in figure 2 is the area comprised of multiple PMDs and the FPMD. Each node sends power measuring data to an appointed Router or LWPMS through the ZigBee network. In case of a specific area which is covered by one FPMD and multiple PMDs according to the number of devices, each node is classified by Node ID and Group ID. The collected power consumption data are transmitted to the LWPMS, analyzed, and used to perform energy management.
TABLE I HARDWARE SPECIFICATION OF FPMD AND PMD Classification FPMD and PMD Communication Interface ZigBee Rated Current 5, 20, 50, 100A (PMS: 20A only) Number of Measurable Items 7 RF output 1mW(30m), 10mW(50m)

Figure 3 shows the hardware structure of the PMD and FPMD. The MCU part is located in the middle, and the relay control, ZigBee communication, power sensing, user interface and power supply exist in the PMD. The PMD provides the ability to sense power consumption, turn devices on or off, and send data through the ZigBee network. However, FPMD does not include the relay control part and user interface part. Clamp-type CT sensors are used to make allow for easy installation in a distribution panel without replacement of modules. Generally, it is difficult to install a power metering device in a distribution panel because of its structural complexity. To minimize this inconvenience, the FPMD uses the clamp type CT sensors to measure power consumption easily. First, an analog value collected by the CT sensors is converted to a current value that can be handled in the MCU by the power metering IC, and the voltage value is changed. Therefore, the FPMD and PMD can determine how much power consumption is used from the current and voltage. This power consumption value is stored in the internal memory in the MCU, and the stored data are transferred periodically to the Light Weight PMS or the Repeater. The FPMD has a simple architecture because it only collects, stores, and transmits data. The PMD also performs these functions but additionally shuts off power in electrical sockets if a monitoring value exceeds the default value or the

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value is changed by users. That is, the total permissible value consists of (1): Pmax Psocket1_ max Psocket 2 _ max Psocket 3_ max (1) , and this value cannot be changed. However, the power shutting-off value is able to be changed so that the power shutting-off value of each power socket or all sockets can be set to be applied in various environments. If a user wants to save power consumption, he can change the value to be applied in his own environment based on the users needs. By using the PMD and FPMD, all used power in a specific space can be monitored.

Fig. 4. Rule Engine of the Web Information Management

Fig. 3. (A) Power Monitoring Device hardware construction (B) Flexible Power Monitoring Device hardware construction (C) Hardware Architecture of FPMD and PMS

Moreover, the PMS also collects the current battery status and generated power in a solar panel by using the FPMD. The PMS gathers the measured power data from the PMD, FPMD, and photovoltaic system module, and arranges these data with time. According to middleware modules in the PMS, the types of data are as follows: Information Management: outdoor temperature, humidity, weather and season information, and electric charge through web-crawling Renewable Energy Management: generated power and battery charging condition in the solar power generator Agent Management: power consumption in the PMD and FPMD The collected data are analyzed in the Smart Power Management part in the PMS. In this paper, we propose two power management methods, efficiency-oriented and useroriented methods.
Web

A. Efficiency-Oriented Method The main idea of the efficiency-oriented method is how efficiently the PMS uses the solar power. There are two important power factors: generated and charging solar power, and current power consumption in this system. The efficiencyoriented method focuses on the usage of the solar power. As described above, the PMS collects the outdoor temperature, humidity, and seasonal conditions by the Web Information Management so that it can infer as follows. In figure 4, the Web Information Analyzer receives the web crawling data, and compares it with previous data stored in the Knowledge Repository in the PMS. According to whether the compared result is higher or lower than the previous data, the Web Information Analyzer can predict whether power consumption increases or decreases based on the rule-based engine. For example, suppose that the current temperature increases in summer. Because the temperature increases, the Web Information Analyzer chooses the yellow 'summer' box first in figure 4, and then the result would be 'Highly Increase' or 'Slightly Increase'. The reason why it determines this action is that if the temperature increases in daytime, we can infer that users would need to adjust optimal temperature and use air conditioning devices. In nighttime, users would also use air conditioning devices, but the power consumption would be less than daytime. Although this inference of the Web Information Management cannot always be accurate, this result is used with other measured power data to make more accurate power predictions. In the Renewable Energy Management, the generated power and battery charging conditions are transmitted to the Smart Power Management. First, the current battery condition is compared with the current power consumption in the Smart Power Management for understanding how much it can be used and the electric charges according to season. The

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gathered data from the PMD, FPMD, and photovoltaic system module are converted into specific factors according to the predefined table in the Rule-based Engine Management, and these factors result in the following three equations:

Web _ Info Weather Season Time PF _ A {(Web _ Info Generation) Battery} PF _ B Consumption (1 Web _ Info) (PF _ A PF _ B) PF _ C Consumption

(2) (3) (4) (5)

The Smart Energy Management determines whether it uses the battery through the three Power Factors: weather, season, and time. Equation (3) describes the available battery power by using Web Info in (2), weather, season, and current time as variables. The variable 'Battery' is the wattage converted from the current battery condition. Each variable (weather, season, and time) has a specific value from 0 to 1, and those are varying according to season, weather, and hourly variation. Equation (4) is the expected power demand which is added to current power consumption and the inferred power consumption from the Web Information. Depending on the Power Factor C in (5), the subtraction between the Power Factors A and B, the Smart Power Management chooses to use the charging battery. Power Factor C > Default Value: use the charging battery Power Factor C Default Value (margin of error of 3%): use the charging battery with partial device controls Power Factor C < Default Value : do not use the charging battery We simplify and compose the rule as described above. The Default Value can be changed by the user or other experimental results so that the proposed system can be applied in various environments. If the Power Factor C is higher or the same as the Default Value, the PMS chooses to use the battery. In the second case, the PMS finds the PMDs, which are gradually used less and turns the power off to make the Power Factor higher than the Default Value. As we described above, the Default Value can be adjusted according to the efficiency of the batteries and time. The reason why the Default Value is able to be changed is that charging a battery does not show linear characteristics and the solar power module can be seriously influenced. In this paper, we determine a specific value which shows the most efficiency in a simulation as the Default Value, but it should be studied further. B. User-Oriented Method The efficiency-oriented method only focuses on finding the optimal time to use the charging battery for decreasing power consumption and electric charges. However, although the service quality of energy management increases, there is another problem users have. For example, consider a device

which is always turned on such as a computer. If this device is turned off by the power control of the PMS, users would feel inconvenience, and this means that the service quality the users feel decreases. A user-oriented method is proposed to minimize this problem. The PMD has four buttons, and one of the buttons can give a priority among the three power sockets. Moreover, the PMS infers which PMD or device plugged into a power socket is used frequently based on data logs in the Knowledge Repository. By using these two ideas, the PMS can control the power except for devices which have priority or are used frequently. That is, the PMS in the user-oriented method manages the entire system for the user's convenience, independently of the efficiency. The user-oriented method has a much simpler algorithm than the efficiency-oriented method. First, the PMS arranges the power consumption according to the time slot on the table. It chooses the specific time slot which has high power consumption to use the charging battery. In case of the useroriented method, the PMS prevents decreases of the service quality of the user's convenience because of shutting off standby power indiscreetly. It maintains power to the special devices, and uses the solar power to minimize cost burden of the user. IV. IMPLEMENTATION The previous chapter describes the middleware architecture of the iEDM. Based on this middleware, the PMS manages each PMD and FPMD, and gathers power data from the two devices and photovoltaic system through the ZigBee network. This data are transmitted to the Light Weight PMS, and it analyzes this data and sends it to the PMS. This distributed structure helps the PMS handle many more nodes. Furthermore, if the number of nodes is small, we design the Light Weight PMS to perform most functions of the PMS so that it can be applied in average homes with the one Light Weight PMS, not the PMS and multiple Light Weight PMS.

Fig. 5. Photovoltaic Generation System (A) 4 solar panels (B) Inverter (C) Battery (D) PV Charge Controller

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Fig. 6. System Structure of Photovoltaic Generation System with the iEDM TABLE II HARDWARE SPECIFICATION OF PHOTOVOLTAIC GENERATION SYSTEM Classification Maximum Power of Solar Panel (4) Maximum Output Power of Inverter Battery Capacity (10) Battery Output Voltage Battery Power Value 100 W (Total 400W) 600W 120 Ah (360 Ah) 12V 14400 Wh

and the user-oriented method. To decrease external variables according to weather condition, the battery is charged up to eighty percent in each experiment. In the user-oriented method, five computers are given priority, and the PMS chooses two PMDs to not turn off power based on the previous power data. Over three days, each experiment was performed in a sunny day to provide battery charge. Figures 7 and 8 show the result of this experiment among the three different environments. In figure 7, decreased power consumption from 12:00 to 15:00 appears in the efficiency-oriented and user-oriented methods. However, there is a difference between the two methods, because the efficiency-oriented method shows evenly declined power consumption, but power consumption of the user-oriented method is concentrated from 12:00 to 13:00. As explained, both methods consider current battery status having limited capacity so that the PMS manages the battery in specific times. In total power consumption, the efficiency method and user method show 5.64 percent and 4.79 percent respective improvement compared with the normal operation. Moreover, it higher energy efficiency is expected with more battery capacity and solar panels.

Figure 5 and 6 show how to generate the photovoltaic system used in this paper. We install a solar panel system on the side of a window, and it consists of an inverter, battery, and PV charge controller which can manage the battery charge efficiently. Then, this generation system is connected to a power breaker in the PMS to be linked to the commercial electricity grid. The FPMD with the power breaker and battery measuring device in the solar panel controller sends power data to the PMS regularly through the ZigBee network. To test the efficiency of the iEDM including the PMS, PMD, FPMD, and photovoltaic system, we implemented it in the test bed. The test bed is used as a research space with TVs, audio devices, and a washing machine, which are all normally used in a home.
TABLE III EXPERIMENTAL ENVIRONMENT OF TEST BED Classification Value Size 96 The number of used devices Monitoring time 30 6:00 ~ 23:00

Fig.7. Experimental results according to energy management methods; Power consumption according to time; bold line means the time when the battery is used

V. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS We implemented the proposed system in the test bed similar to a home space, and tested the two energy management methods. The ten PMDs and one FPMD were installed, and the PMS was located in the center of the test bed to minimize wireless network problems. Furthermore, we also considered the variation of types of devices to provide a general experimental environment, and adjusted the number of devices because it is difficult to handle power consumption in the test bed by a limited capacity of batteries. We tested three different methods: the general utility interactive system method, the efficiency-oriented method,

(B) Fig.8. Experimental results according to energy management methods; Total Power consumption

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VI. CONCLUSION In this paper, the proposed system gave improved energy efficiency compared with a normal utility interactive system. If the limited storage capacity and the number of solar panels are improved, the iEDM shows better performance. Furthermore, more environmental factors are not included in this paper for the sake of verification. We have studied each factor that can influence this system and found other variables to improve energy efficiency. REFERENCES
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[12] S. Dasgupta, S. K. Sahoo, and S. K. Panda, "Single-Phase Inverter Control Techniques for Interfacing Renewable Energy Sources With Microgrid--Part I: Parallel-Connected Inverter Topology With Active and Reactive Power Flow Control Along With Grid Current Shaping," Power Electronics, IEEE Transactions on, vol. 26, pp. 717-731, 2011. [13] R. Bojoi, L. R. Limongi, D. Roiu, and A. Tenconi, "Enhanced power quality control strategy for single-phase inverters in distributed generation systems," in Industrial Electronics (ISIE), 2010 IEEE International Symposium on, 2010, pp. 2727-2732. [14] C. Yang and K. Smedley, "Three-Phase Boost-Type Grid-Connected Inverter," Power Electronics, IEEE Transactions on, vol. 23, pp. 23012309, 2008. [15] S. M. Alghuwainem, "Performance analysis of a PV powered DC motor driving a 3-phase self-excited induction generator," Energy Conversion, IEEE Transactions on, vol. 11, pp. 155-161, 1996. [16] B. M. T. Ho, H. S. H. Chung, and W. L. Lo, "Use of system oscillation to locate the MPP of PV panels," Power Electronics Letters, IEEE, vol. 2, pp. 1-5, 2004. [17] H. Insung and P. Sehyun, "Flexible structural power monitoring device with clamp type CT sensors," in Consumer Electronics (ICCE), 2011 IEEE International Conference on, 2011, pp. 311-312. BIOGRAPHIES Insung Hong received his B.S and M.S degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from Chung-Ang University, Seoul, Korea, in 2009 and 2011. He is currently a Ph.D. candidate at Chung-Ang University. His current research interests include ubiquitous computing, embedded system, and intelligent system and home network. Byeongkwan Kang received his B.S degree in the school of Electrical and Electronics Engineering from Chung-Ang University, Seoul, 2011. He is currently a M.S. candidate at Chung-Ang University, Seoul, Korea. His current research interests include renewable energy system design, power management system design, embedded system design and smart grid. Sehyun Park (M01) received the B.S. and M.S. degrees in electronics engineering from the Chung-Ang University, Seoul, Korea in 1986 and 1988, respectively, and the Ph.D. from University of Massachusetts, Amherst in 1998. From 1988 to 1999, he was a senior research staff at ETRI, Korea. He is currently an Professor of School of Electrical and Electronics Engineering at the Chung-Ang University, where he has established the Ubiquitous Computing and Cipher Internet Laboratory. He is the head of Chung-Ang University HNRC (Home Network Research Center)ITRC (Information Technology Research Center) supported by the MKE (Ministry of Knowledge Economy), Korea. His major research interests include home networks, ubiquitous computing and network security.