IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SMART GRID, VOL. 3, NO.
3, SEPTEMBER 2012
Control of Flexible Smart Devices in the Smart Grid
George Koutitas, Member, IEEE
Abstract—This paper investigates load control and demand re-
sponse in a smart grid environment where a bidirectional commu-
nication link between the operator and the smart flexible devices
supports command and data flow. Two control schemes are inves-
tigated that can provide energy management, taking into account
user’s comfort, via binary on-off policies of the smart flexible de-
vices. A dynamic control algorithm is introduced that considers
real time network characteristics and initiates command flow when
critical parameters exceed predefined thresholds. To sustain fair-
ness in the system, priority based and round robin scheduling al-
gorithms are proposed. A continuous control algorithm is also ex-
plored to define the higher bounds of energy savings. To quan-
tify the discomfort of users that participate in this type of ser-
vices, a heuristic consumer utility metric is proposed and mea-
surements with a flexible device (air conditioning unit) are per-
formed to model empirically possible time intervals of the control
scheme. Reciprocal fair energy management schemes are investi-
gated being both operator and user centric. It is shown that great
energy and cost savings can be achieved providing the required de-
grees of freedom to the smart grid to self-adapt during peak hours.
Index Terms—Demand response, home energy management,
load control, scheduling, smart grids, smart sensors.
I. INTRODUCTION
T HE Information and Communication Technology (ICT)
sector is called to hold a vital role in the 20-20-20 goal by
providing the energy sector the required technology and infra-
structure for energy management [1]. The building and the elec-
tricity grid sector are the most important sectors of interest since
they are responsible for the greatest energy waste. Great energy
savings can be achieved through sophisticated algorithms that
control and schedule power tasks from smart devices in a dy-
namic manner. These processes provide the necessary founda-
tions for demand response (DR) and self-adaptable smart grids
[2]. Smart devices are responsible in real time monitoring and
actuation under command flow arriving from the smart grid. In
general, the greatest the number of deployed smart devices is,
more flexibility is given to the grid and thus more vibrant the
grid operation is expected to be.
The smart-building is the fundamental element of the smart
power grid where real time energy and environmental data mon-
itoring will be used at higher layers, for energy management and
electricity price forecasting. Furthermore, due to limited power
Manuscript received September 04, 2011; revised December 09, 2011, April
19, 2012; accepted June 05, 2012. Date of publication July 03, 2012; date of cur-
rent version August 20, 2012. This work was supported by the European Union
FP7/2007-2013 under Grant 257740 (Network of Excellence TREND) and by
the European Social Fund—ESF and Greek national funds through the Oper-
ational Program “Education and Lifelong Learning” of the National Strategic
Reference Framework (NSRF). Paper no. TSG-00508-2011.
The author is with the School of Science and Technology, International
Hellenic University, 14 km Thessaloniki-Moudania, 57001, Greece (e-mail:
g.koutitas@ihu.edu.gr), and also with the Department Computer Engineering
and Telecommunications, University of Thessaly, 38221, Volos (TREND
project).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TSG.2012.2204410
1949-3053/$31.00 © 2012 IEEE
1333
supply from renewable energy systems (RES) and microgrid in-
stallations, it is important to develop scheduling and control al-
gorithms to balance the operation of the smart grid and minimize
costs from imported energy or even minimize blackout events.
In order to guarantee a reciprocal fair management scheme, the
control and scheduling algorithms need to take into account
users’ comfort and profits as well as operator’s gains.
Most of the papers found in the literature deal with optimiza-
tion or scheduling algorithms that meet certain criteria of energy
management but are targeted only to the user or the operator
side, neglecting fairness and comfort issues. In [3] scheduling
algorithms for the offline and online problem of non-preemp-
tive and preemptive scenarios are investigated. The goal is to
guarantee cost minimization from power tasks with user ori-
ented time thresholds. A satisfiability investigation of elastic
demand in the smart grid is presented in [4]. The authors study
system behavior under uncertainties. In [5] the demand response
problem is addressed to provide a fault tolerant operation of a
microgrid using multi-agent algorithms. User disruption under
load control is addressed in [6]. Scheduling algorithms that face
the demand response problem and are based on forecasted elec-
tricity price are presented in [7]–[9]. Dynamic decision for en-
ergy management based on multi-power supply systems is given
in [10]. The aim is to optimize the use of the available resources
in a given local generation system. Network architecture for en-
ergy management of smart households is presented in [11].
To support the operation of such algorithms, advanced net-
work solutions are necessary to provide reliable communication
links between smart devices and controllers and enable com-
mand flow. These are met in a home area network (HAN) or
a machine to machine (M2M) formation over heterogeneous
wireless sensor/actuator networks (HWSNs). In [12] M2M net-
work architecture is presented for smart buildings and smart grid
scenarios. A HAN architecture is given in [13]. A case study for
ambient environments in a University building is presented in
[14], [15]. The authors present semantic web services for the
integration of HWSNs applied to home energy management.
Smart grid technologies and protocols for networking of smart
devices are presented in [16], [17].
The above mentioned algorithms and techniques focus on
the ICT infrastructure used for smart grid applications or they
focus on algorithms for energy management either at the oper-
ator or the user level, neglecting fairness or comfort criteria.
This paper considers a bidirectional communication link be-
tween smart buildings and the operator and proposes novel al-
gorithms for energy management of flexible smart devices that
are both operator and user centric and take into account fairness
and user comfort criteria.
Two control algorithms are proposed, the Continuous Con-
trol Algorithm (CCA) and the Threshold Algorithm (TA) and
compared to the No Control case (NC). These algorithms are
able to change the state of operation of the flexible smart de-
vice which can be described as a Markov chain. The CCA can
1334
Fig. 1. Smartgrid architecture for a neighborhood of smart buildings controlled
by a single supervisor.
be regarded as a device level control algorithm where contin-
uous on/off activations are performed by the flexible device.
This scheme presents the minimum intelligence and it consti-
tutes the higher bound of energy savings. Despite the fact that
high energy savings are observed, the discomfort to the user
is at the maximum level. The TA algorithm is a dynamic pre-
emptive algorithm where external commands arrive at the user
premises to enable load control and demand response according
to variable user demands and limited load capacities. In order to
provide a reciprocal fair management procedure, the algorithms
are both operator and user centric, they take into account users’
comfort criteria and scheduling priorities.
Two fair scheduling algorithms are proposed and compared.
The Highest Power Next (HPN) is a priority scheduling scheme
that can be seen as a load balancing procedure. The Round Robin
scheduling scheme provides uniformly distributed number of
switch off commands among the users of the network. For the
efficient penetration of smart grid services in the user premises,
one should study the subjective parameter of user satisfaction.
For the purpose of our investigation, a heuristic satisfaction
metric is modeled, which is derived from the consumer utility
of the economic theory. The expected results by implementing
the proposed algorithms is cost reduction, load balancing, and
control and energy savings.
II. THE SMARTGRID MODEL
A. Network Architecture
The main elements of the smart grid architecture are the smart
buildings, the bi-directional communication infrastructure, the
supervisors (controllers), the service provider, and the operator
[18], as shown in Fig. 1. These form an Advanced Metering
Infrastructure (AMI) whose standards and guidelines have been
recently developed [19].
The smart building is the basic element of the smartgrid that
consumes energy, it may produce energy from RES, it moni-
tors critical data with HANs of smart meters/actuators and trans-
mits information in real time to the other parties. Characteristic
examples are energy plug sensors, usually over IEEE 802.15.4
Zigbee platforms [20] and energy RF434 MHz clamp sensors.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SMART GRID, VOL. 3, NO. 3, SEPTEMBER 2012
The most critical data that is monitored in the smart building
are the total energy consumption/production, the individual con-
sumption from home appliances, the indoor environmental pa-
rameters, which describe user comfort, and other user oriented
data like thresholds and policies for efficient equipment opera-
tion [3]. The agent of the smart building is a central CPU unit
and is responsible for the data aggregation within the house
and the transmission to other parties. Furthermore, the agent re-
ceives and executes control and scheduling commands that ar-
rive from the smart grid to meet certain goals. The execution of
the commands is performed within the sensor network of smart
actuators under binary on/off activation schemes of the home
appliances.
A wide area network (WAN) is responsible for the data trans-
mission from the agents to other parties. The supervisor is re-
sponsible for monitoring a group of smart buildings and receives
data packets from the agents, usually using TCP/IP. The su-
pervisor can also be the intelligent unit of a microgrid in order
to control and optimize the local generation. The operator and
the service provider communicate with all the supervisors of
the network for further data manipulation and decision/policy
making.
B. Definition of Parameters
A set of users (smart buildings) is assumed to live in an
area which are served by a local energy generation system (mi-
crogrid) or by a smart grid controller. The identifiers of each
user are where is the maximum
number of users . We use a discrete time model
with a finite time horizon that models a day. Each day is di-
vided into periods of equal duration, indexed by
. For the purpose or our investiga-
tion, was assumed as 06:00 A.M. Each user arrives in the
network (start consumes power) at time and is
active for a time period described by uniform
randomly distributed values between the finite interval
and with ( is a generator of uniform dis-
tributed random number).
Flexible Smart Devices: Within the smart building there
are flexible devices that can be controlled by the agent, under
the supervisor commands performing an on/off policy, without
affecting users’ comfort. Comfort is related to parameters
(a physical value) and (a threshold value) and by two
time thresholds, namely and (Fig. 2).
Parameter describes the minimum time needed to reduce
a hypothetical discomfort metric, to the wanted value. Pa-
rameter describes the time needed the discomfort metric
to reach a maximum threshold, . These devices are named as
smart flexible devices. Characteristic examples are air-condi-
tioning units, washing machines, heat/cold water machines, etc.
[8]. The nonflexible devices can not be controlled by external
parties since they are directly related to users’ activity within
the smart building.
The flexible smart device operates under the following
assumption: , a random uniformly dis-
tributed number between 1 and and similarly
with . The discomfort metric, is
assumed proportional to and can be different for each user
according to other criteria (effectiveness of appliances, home
insulation, etc.). A straight forward example is the increase of
KOUTITAS: CONTROL OF FLEXIBLE SMART DEVICES IN THE SMART GRID
Fig. 2. User power profile and discomfort metric.
Fig. 3. The average user activity curve over a summer period [21].
a room’s temperature when the air-conditioning unit is turned
off until it reaches a threshold value, above which the user
feels discomfort. In that case represents the time needed
to decrease a room’s temperature to the desired value,
represents the time needed that the temperature increases above
a comfortable threshold and models the room’s temperature.
In most occasions it can be stated that . Following the time constraints of user as shown in Table I the
This assumption is used for the analytical computations of
Section III-D and is not a restriction in the algorithm.
Demand Arrivals: Users are activated under Poisson arrivals
during the time period of the simulation. The distribution of the
user density during was modeled according to measured
average activity profiles of typical households and offices over
summer periods [21]. The normalized activity profile is pre-
sented in Fig. 3. The summer period was considered since a di-
rect application of the proposed algorithm concerns load control
from air-conditioning units. Of course, the algorithm is devel-
oped in a generic approach and any activity profile can be in-
corporated in the code.
User States of Operation: Each user, , is described by the
state of operation which is given by a row vector, the indicator
(Table I). This indicator is “captured” by the agent
of the smart building and is transmitted to the supervisor (up-
link), as shown in Fig. 4. When the user has entered the system,
meaning that or , the agent can
receive four operational/command states from the supervisor
(downlink) which are described by the logical matrix,
. The operational states are described by binary row vectors
which are the following: describes the charging state
where the user first enters the system and the flexible device
cannot be switched off due to the time limitation . The
state describes the recharging state where the flexible
device of the user is turned on after a switch off deactivation
1335
Fig. 4. Measurements of a typical flexible load. An air-condition unit was mea-
sured using a plug wireless sensor.
and therefore cannot be switched off again due to the time lim-
itation . The state models the case where the
flexible device of the user receives a switched off command and
finally describes the maintenance state where the flex-
ible device of the user is on and can be switched off at anytime.
following equations are satisfied:
Since the number of switch off commands each user receives
is unknown, ( , with representing the identi-
fier of the off command) and the time of the reception of switch
off command, , are unknown, the time inequalities in Table I
describe the main idea and are not representative for all cases.
Power Profile: The power profile of each user, , is divided
into two main components, as shown in Fig. 2. An average
constant power load is used to model the power needs of
non-flexible devices. Of course, in reality the non-flexible loads
are not constant with time but instead they are opportunistic in
nature or even follow their own probability curves. Due to the
stochastic arrivals of the users in our system and the compar-
ative simulations related to the no control case, a constant av-
erage value can be used to simplify the computations, without
significantly affecting final predictions. The second component
of the power profile is the power load of the flexible devices,
. Two cases are investigated. In the first case is as-
sumed as a decreasing piecewise linear function of time, , [22]
and for the second case is assumed constant with time. In
a mathematical form it is given in (1).
Case 1: Piecewise linear function (see (1a) at the bottom
1336 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SMART GRID, VOL. 3, NO. 3, SEPTEMBER 2012

TABLE I
STATES OF OPERATION OF SMART DEVICES (4b)

The cost and the load assumed to present a convex relation [3]
described by (5).

(5)

C. Measurements of a Typical Load

In order to model the profile of a typical flexible load, mea-
surements of a commodity air condition unit connected to a
smart metering device were performed. The measurement setup
is presented in Fig. 4. A smart plug low power sensor transmit-
ting 3 dBm at 2.4 GHz was connected to the agent PC through
a Zigbee network and M2M communication was established
through web services. The load measurements were sampled at
every time step s and saved in .txt file for further manip-
ulation. The device under investigation was an air conditioning
of the page).
unit placed within a house of size 65 m . The temperature of
Case 2: Binary valued function
the air conditioning unit was set at 23 C and the outside tem-
perature during the measurements was 32 C. The mode of op-
(1b) eration of the air-conditioning unit was set to auto mode. This
means that the air condition unit switches on or off automati-
For the piecewise power profile is the power of the device cally to maintain the air temperature near a constant value (24
when it starts to operate and models the case of C). The measurement results are presented in Fig. 4. The figure
stabilized operation after time . To capture the operation presents the stabilized air condition operation, meaning that the
of multistate devices, one can assume that and describe initial time required to reach the preferred indoor temperature
average stabilized levels. The power needs of active user, is is ignored (the required time was approximately 15 min). Two
thus given by scenarios were considered. In the first scenario, referring to the
no control case, the air condition unit was operating without any
(2) external management scheme. The other scenario refers to the
control case where the user controlled the air condition under
The consumed energy of user over the activated period is comfort constraints. The scope of this measurement set up is to
thus given by investigate empirically, the degrees of freedom (feasible time
intervals) a smart grid controller could have upon an air condi-
tion unit.
(3) No Control: It was found that when the air condition device
operates in auto mode was on (active) for min and
off for min approximately, maintaining a
In the above formulation, represents the area enclosed by C. The power profile in this case is
the power consumption of nonflexible devices for the time pe- W when the device was in full operation and W
riod whereas and represents the area enclosed by the when the device automatically switched off. A mean value can
power consumption of the flexible device over the reception of be used to simplify computations and this is of
switch on/off commands (Fig. 2). For a binary valued flexible (1b) as shown in Fig. 4.
device (case 2) it is . Control: For this case the user was able to switch on/off the
The total power load at any time instance, of air condition according to the temperature comfort in the en-
simultaneously active users and the total energy consumption at vironment. The purpose of this measurement is to obtain the
the end of the simulations can be computed according to maximum or minimum switch on/off time intervals that the con-
troller should consider when external management is imposed.
(4a) It was found that min and min
approximately, maintaining a C in the apartment. The

(1a)
KOUTITAS: CONTROL OF FLEXIBLE SMART DEVICES IN THE SMART GRID 1337

power profile in this case is W when the

device was on and W when the device was off.
A mean value can be used to simplify computations and this is
of Fig. 4.
For a working period of 70 min and taking into account the
mean load values, and , the total consumed energy
in the no control and control cases was found to be
Whr and Whr. A saving approximately 25%–30%
was observed. This means that the smart grid can externally con-
trol flexible devices (air condition in this case) without signifi-
cantly affecting the comfort in the environment and at the same
time reduce peak loads in the grid and provide energy saving
within user’s premise. It should be stated that the house where
the measurements took place is an old apartment without proper
insulation. The ratio in modern households is
expected to be smaller. It should be noted that in a real smart
grid environment, it is essential to provide the grid the ability to
store for each user and for each flexible device the required pa-
rameters , and the power profiles. These parameters
are stored in the agent of the smart building who transmits them
to the local controller (supervisor). Parameters and that
Fig. 5. The general architecture of the system.
are related to the power profile can easily be approximated by
tabulated values according to the specifications of the devices.
The user is required to inform the grid about the type of de- supervisor is to keep the load under (or minimize the load ex-
vices that can be externally controlled. For the comfort values ceeding) a given capacity or reduce costs during high elec-
that are directly related to there are two options to tricity price periods. The threshold capacity represents a limited
follow. One is a user oriented approach where the user uploads power supply system where excess energy need to be imported
the time thresholds of his/her preference to the smart grid. The or may cause a blackout. A characteristic example is a micro-
other approach can be based on a self-learning system with feed- grid that serves an isolated, off grid, area in an island mode. The
back where the user can inform the grid when he/she feels dis- threshold can be static or variable with time describing en-
comfort. In such a scheme the smart grid (agent and supervisor) ergy production from RES during a day. The supervisor can take
will “understand” the preferred time thresholds after a working actions to meet the objectives under a binary on/off activation
time period of the system. A similar approach is used in modern scheme. This model can also be used for the case of an agent in a
“smart” thermostatic controllers. Privacy issues related to the smart building that controls a large number of flexible devices.
readings of these values is an important issue but does not ex- B. Dynamic Scheduling and Control Actions
ceed the already existing privacy concerns related to real time
energy metering. The control and scheduling problem is a dynamic preemp-
tive one meaning that the flexible device can be switched on/off
III. CONTROL AND SCHEDULING ALGORITHM many times during the activation period, according to real
time conditions. The state of operation of the flexible device is
A. Objectives a Markov chain. Three categories of actions are investigated,
A fundamental characteristic of the smart grid is the flexi- namely the No Control algorithm (NC), the Continuous Control
bility it offers to self-adapt, self-heal, and self-optimize its op- Algorithm (CCA), and the Threshold Algorithm (TA).
eration. It can be considered as a self-optimized network (SON) No Control (NC): This is the case where there is no command
where the main targets are the “peak shave,” the demand re- flow between the supervisor and the flexible devices. All devices
sponse, and the cost minimization. A great amount of energy is in our network are considered to be nonflexible devices and the
expected to be saved and this has a direct consequence on the smart grid has no permission rights to act externally. Based on
reduction of carbon emissions that are related to energy under the indicators presented in Table I the flexible device can only
proportionality factors (x grCO /kWh) depending on the type send . For the NC case the states of operation
of generation. of the flexible devices can only be:
Fig. 5 presents in a block diagram of the required architecture and the following relation
to meet these targets. A stochastic model is used to generate the is thus satisfied:
users’ energy requests in time. The smart grid is allowed to con-
trol and schedule the operation of the flexible devices that can
be either formed in a cluster format or individually. The con-
trol algorithm needs to take into account constraints related to
users’ comfort in order to effectively penetrate the services in Continuous Control Algorithm (CCA): The CCA algorithm
the market. The supervisor is responsible for monitoring a large can be considered as a demand load control algorithm that
number of premises and deciding under certain criteria on the pushes the users’ comfort to the limits. It can be performed
performed control and scheduling policy. The objective of the either externally by the smart grid or within the device level,
1338
Fig. 6. Control/scheduling process.
thus minimizing data exchange between the agent and the
supervisor. On many occasions the CCA algorithm needs to
be performed at different time periods during the day, thus the
external control scheme is more preferable. A characteristic
example is the reduction of power load during high electricity
price time periods. During CCA the supervisor continuously
sends commands to switch on/off the flexible loads at every
time interval and . Taking into account queuing
theory and by modeling as the “wanted” task the switch off
request , the CCA algorithm can be considered similar
to a service system. The first parameter models the
arrival time distribution (for our case is memoryless and is
written as ), the second parameter models the service time
distribution (which is again memoryless- ) and the third pa-
rameter models the number of servers in the system that serve
the requests (they are infinite to model the case of continuously
served requests ). In other words, the server of the system is
modeled to be always free to satisfy the tasks . The term
server is used to describe a physical CPU unit or application
software in the controller (supervisor or the agent) and decides
which requests to be served. The infinite number of servers is
hypothetical and one could also consider the case of one server
with zero service time of the tasks. For the CCA case, the states
of operation of the flexible devices are modeled as
The block diagram of the control/scheduling algorithm
is shown in Fig. 6. There are active users which are
pushed in the controller. The controller, according to the
time counter of each user and the decision variables
and , decides which users will be switched on or off.
users are switched off if
and - users are on if where
and is the
identifier of the switch off command. Therefore, for the CCA
algorithm it is .
The objective of the CCA algorithm is to minimize energy
consumption according to the following set of equations:
(6a)
(6b)
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SMART GRID, VOL. 3, NO. 3, SEPTEMBER 2012
(6c)
The decision variables of the problem are the binary commands
(states of operation) transmitted from the smart grid to the agent
(6b). The constraints incorporate comfort issues, which are de-
noted in the first and the last line of (6c) and the active duration
of the user in the system which is described by the second line
of (6c).
Threshold Algorithm (TA): The TA algorithm is a dynamic
demand load control algorithm that takes into account real time
load, and capacity, as shown in the decision vari-
ables of Fig. 6. The aim is to try and keep the system’s load, at
any time instance , under a given capacity threshold , taking
into account comfort and fairness issues. It must be stated that
the TA algorithm can also be used for the time-of-use price sce-
nario. For that case a price threshold can be defined by the su-
pervisor or the agent of the system and the algorithm will try to
keep costs under the predefined threshold. On/off actions are
performed only when the thresholds are exceeded. In a sim-
ilar to the CCA approach, the system can be considered as a
or service
system. The forth parameter models the service discipline, the
fifth parameter the waiting space of the queue and the sixth pa-
rameter the population size. In this case we have one server with
zero service time, infinite waiting space, and population and ser-
vice discipline that can be either general independent or based
on priority criteria similar to shortest job next (SJN). The pri-
ority criteria reflect the fairness issues that are discussed in the
next paragraph of the paper. The server is assumed to become
free only when the condition of (7a) is not met. The smartgrid
sends to the controller jobs that are satisfied according to
the priority criteria. When request is served, it means that
flexible device of user is switched off and thus .
For the TA case, the flexible devices can perform transitions be-
tween all possible states and these are defined as
The objective of the TA algorithm is described according to
the following set of equations:
(7a)
(7b)
KOUTITAS: CONTROL OF FLEXIBLE SMART DEVICES IN THE SMART GRID 1339

responsible for the high power loads of the system and need
to participate more in the on/off strategy, compared to others.
In this paper, fairness is introduced in three different approx-
imations: in a Round Robin scheduling scheme, in a Highest
Power Next (HPN) priority scheme, and in a Reciprocal Fair
Management (RFM) approximation. Both the Round Robin and
the HPN scheme incorporate sorting algorithms and thus they
present a computational complexity of , where
the number of active users.
Round Robin: This is the case where the multi level queue of
is given priority according to a Round Robin fashion. The
scheduler switches off the first available user and then places
the user back to the queue until all users that have not been
(7c)
switched off are “served.” In this way, all flexible devices are
expected to be switched on/off approximately equal number of
The decision variables for this case are the same with (6b).
times meaning that (Algorithm 1).
The constraints have changed and now take into account switch
Highest Power Next (HPN): This is the case where the multi
off or maintenance states of the flexible devices, which are de-
level queue of is given priority similar to the SJN. For
scribed by the first line of (7c). The TA algorithm might become
the HPN the flexible devices that operate within users’ premises
similar to the CCA control policy if and only if .
that present high background power loads, are pushed
first in the queue. This algorithm can be considered similar to
Algrothim 1: ROUND ROBIN AND HPN FAIRNESS
a load balancing technique where the goal is to try to equalize
commands for Round Robin algorithm only the power loads of all users during the time period where the
create , (ST-Switch off Time) total load of the system exceeds the threshold. With the HPN
algorithm the number of received on/off commands follow a
commands for HPN algorithm only linear relationship with the average load of the user
create , (MP-Mean Power) (see Algorithm 1). A reward priority algorithm
common for both Round Robin and HPN algorithms for load shifting applications can be found in [23].
while Reciprocal Fair Management (RFM): The RFM algorithm is
Loop not a scheduling algorithm but mainly a constraint that guaran-
tees that the user that participates in the management procedure
create
will benefit compared to the NC case. In this way, both the op-
erator and the user sides present energy savings and thus cost
savings. This means or .
Consumer Utility: Consumer utility, in economic theory, rep-
resents the satisfaction of the user, relative to a given value, by
using a given service. For the purpose of our investigation, a
heuristic metric, the consumer disutility (DU) was used to model
the dissatisfaction of user that receives on/off commands from
if true the smart grid. It was modeled by taking into account the total
continue next amount of time the users were in off mode over the time that
else these users would be on for the NC case compared to the CCA
scheme. In a mathematical form it follows :
next Loop
end
end while

C. Fairness Issues
By letting external parties control and schedule flexible de-
vices in a user premise, creates fairness and comfort issues that (8)
need to be taken into account by operators to sustain the effec-
tive penetration of services. The CCA and TA policies reduce
the total energy consumption of the system, compared to the NC where denotes the set of users that have received at least one
policy but there are many occasions where specific users might off command .
be forced to consume extra energy compared to the NC case.
This can be easily understood from the power profile presented D. Analytical Approximation
in (1a). According to the parameters and the It is not always feasible to keep the total load of the system
number of received on/off commands the control policy below the maximum capacity, similar to condition in (7a). Ac-
might cause excess energy consumption. Furthermore, fairness cording to the simulation parameters and the
issues arise from the fact that users with high are more characteristics of the users’ devices there
1340
are cases where it is not feasible to reduce costs or energy under
the CCA or even satisfy the constraints of TA. In some occa-
sions, energy saving at the perspective of the operator (super-
visor or microgrid) can be achieved by sacrificing energy sav-
ings for some users. Of course this holds only for the case of
piecewise linear function .
Energy Saving From a Single Flexible Device: Let us as-
sume that there is a single user in the system and we want to
compare the NC and CCA/TA algorithms. We are interested in
defining the minimum ratio such that energy sav-
ings are achieved from the on/off management scheme. For
the binary valued function , the solution is obvious and is
. For the piece-
wise linear function of (1a) the management scheme will
provide energy savings if
(9a)
This formulation provides the relationship of the operational
characteristics of the flexible devices in order to gain energy
from the control scheme. One can also compute the maximum
number of the received on/off commands above which energy
is wasted. Assuming that and
(to simplify computations) the maximum number
is given by
(9b)
In the above formulation, operator defines the lower rounded
integer value. To achieve a reciprocal fair energy management
scheme (RFM) the rules presented in (9) should be satisfied.
Peak Power Under a Given Threshold: In many occasions
the peak power is required to be kept under a given threshold.
To simplify computations, we can assume that the user distri-
bution density is described by a linearly increasing/decreasing
function whose maximum is met at 14.00 P.M. In that instance
the maximum number of active users is approximately equal to
, where is the average duration of users in
the network and the maximum number of users. For a given
power threshold defined as , the mean required number of
switch on/off (assuming CCA policy) is computed by
(10a)
The minimum number of the switch off time interval can be
similarly computed as
(10b)
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SMART GRID, VOL. 3, NO. 3, SEPTEMBER 2012
Fig. 7. Switch off time interval and number of switch on/off activations
as a function of number of users in the network. Solid line with asterisks
represents the user centric feasible solution.
To investigate the meaning of the simplified analytical ap-
proximations lets assume that there is a microgrid with a max-
imum capacity of kW that serves users each one
having an average power load equal to kW. Each user
has an air-conditioning unit (flexible device) that requires power
as given in (1a) with kW and kW. The re-
quired average time to reach the wanted room temperature is
hrs. Each user has a maximum switch off time
hrs to sustain comfort and an average du-
ration in the network, h. The microgrid has a supervisor
that can send on/off requests in a CCA scheme in order the peak
power never to exceed the threshold. According to (10) it can be
observed that depending on the used simulation parameters, the
equations of (9) are not always satisfied. This means that the mi-
crogrid will achieve a peak power under a given threshold but
might cause excess energy consumption to certain users, non-
reciprocal fair management (non-RFM). Fig. 7 presents the re-
gions of possible solutions and the curves representing the fea-
sible and fair solution that satisfies all the constraints.
Three regions are distinguished. The non RFM region con-
tains the solution ( or ) where peak power is below the
threshold but some users suffer excess power consumption com-
pared to the NC policy. The all conditions satisfied region is
the region of possible solutions where all conditions are met.
This means that the peak power is under the threshold, the user
gains from the on/off policy without affecting his/her comfort.
After 1100 users arrive in the network, there are two options to
follow. By placing high priority on the user satisfaction index,
the system selects the user centric solution (asterisks curve) sac-
rificing costs. The other option is operator centric and selects
switch off time internals (or number of off commands )
higher than the imposed by the user discomfort values. The peak
power is under the threshold but there is dissatisfaction by the
users. The region no conditions satisfied is the region where both
parties are not satisfied. The region with no shading that falls
under the feasible solution is the region where the
load is higher than the capacity. The region above the feasible
solution , with no shading, is the region where the
system achieves a load smaller than the capacity but the switch
KOUTITAS: CONTROL OF FLEXIBLE SMART DEVICES IN THE SMART GRID
Fig. 8. User state of operation during the day. TA algorithm.
off interval is higher than the allowed margins. Thus, dis-
comfort becomes critical.
IV. SIMULATION RESULTS
The scenario under investigation comprises users
with average load (nonflexible devices) described by uniform
randomly distributed values between and
W and kW to model houses and of-
fice buildings in a typical urban environment). For the opera-
tion of the flexible devices each user is characterized by uni-
form randomly distributed values hrs,
hrs with to
satisfy (9a), hrs, kW, and kW.
These values can model typical operation of air-conditioners,
ovens, or water heaters.
The users are served by a local generation system that has a
capacity 35% higher (safety margin) than the needs of nonflex-
ible power demands at peak hours meaning that
with indicating the maximum number of simultaneously ac-
tive users at peak hour. All simulation results are averaged over
500 independent runs of the algorithms to capture a great diver-
sity of possible scenarios that can be met in real life.
Change of Operational States During a Day: The process of
the algorithm for the TA algorithm is presented in Fig. 8. Users
enter the system and become active (reduce number of users
with and increase number of users with ).
When the total power exceeds the threshold, the flexible devices
from certain users need to be switched off . This oc-
curs during the peak hour traffic where the highest power load
is met. When the time of operation of the flexible device ex-
ceeds the threshold then the device exits the system and thus,
. plained by taking into account the fact that the users with high
Cost and Power Savings: The cost and load savings com-
pared to the NC algorithm are presented in Fig. 9. The cost
was assumed as a convex function of the instantaneous load de-
scribed by (5). The CCA and the TA algorithm for the HPN
and the Round Robin fairness are compared to the NC case.
1341
Fig. 9. Load and cost savings of the CCA and the TA algorithms relative to the
NC algorithm for the HPN and the Round Robin fairness case.
The following conclusions can be derived. First of all, the load
and cost savings are independent on the type of fairness used
at the scheduling scheme. This is expected since the smart grid
switches off the required number of flexible devices to achieve
the goals (demand response) under the given constraints. The
TA algorithm starts to present savings after the time where the
total power approaches the threshold. Load savings of approxi-
mately 18% are observed, resulting to cost savings of approxi-
mately 33%. On the other hand, the CCA algorithm initiates the
on/off control scheme when the user is active for a period greater
than independently to the threshold margin . This has as
a consequence of more load and cost savings to be achieved that
are almost constant with time (21% and 36% respectively). De-
spite the fact that the CCA algorithm presents high savings for
the operator, users might become dissatisfied with the system
since they are continuously pushed to their discomfort limits.
Fairness Issues: The HPN and Round Robin fairness algo-
rithms are presented in Fig. 10. The number of received on/off
commands is presented as a function of the users’ average
power . For the simulation results, it was assumed that
all users connect to the system simultaneously and it was set
and kW. These values model the case that
all users are activated simultaneously, resulting to peak hour
characteristics and so they are all forced to participate in the
control scheme during their activation period. These settings are
used to gain a clearer picture for the comparison of the two fair-
ness algorithms.
The following observations are derived. The HPN fairness al-
gorithm yield users with high power needs to be forced to switch
off their flexible devices more times than the users with lower
power needs. Since the RFM case is always satisfied, anytime a
user switches off the flexible loads it means that he/she reduces
his/her overall power consumption. In that way, users with high
power loads are switched off more times, providing load bal-
ance in the system. The fairness of this condition can be ex-
power needs are more responsible for the excess of the system’s
load thresholds. On the other hand, the Round Robin fairness
scheme is independent to the average power of the users, as ex-
pected. For that case, all users are forced to switch on/off equal
number of times providing another type of fairness policy in the
1342
Fig. 10. Number of switch on/off commands as a function of users’ average-
power load for the HPN and the Round Robin fairness (TA algorithm).
system. The final policy to be followed depends on the oper-
ator’s strategy with respect to the consumers.
Variable Capacity: Fig. 11 presents the simulation results
for the case of variable capacity. The operator centric and the
user centric graphs present the gains from the operator and the
user perspectives. The relation between the extra safety margin
needed at the installed capacity and the probability to exceed
the threshold is presented together with the percentage of time
(relative to NC case) where the threshold is exceeded. The user
centric graph presents the user energy savings relative to the NC
case and the consumer disutility as described in (8). It can be
observed that by increasing the installed capacity, the operator
reduces the probabilities and the time required to import energy
(cost reduction-OPEX) but requires a higher CAPEX for the in-
stallation. In addition, the users save less energy (since they are
not forced to switch off) but are more satisfied (lower disutility
factor). As expected, the CCA algorithm yields higher gains for
both the operator and the users but on the other hand, it creates
a higher consumer disutility factor. It can be observed that both
TA and CCA have approximately the same time per day where
peak power exceeds the threshold. Despite the fact that the CCA
algorithm reduces the total energy consumption of the system,
it does not significantly reduces the peak power compared to the
TA algorithm.
Variable User’s Comfort: Fig. 12 shows the performance
of the TA and the CCA algorithms under a given (with
%) and variable . It was assumed that the
RFM criterion stands for . When the ratio
it was assumed that the discomfort metric
exceeds the allowable margin . It can be observed that the
higher the is, the higher are the savings at both the
operator and the user side. From the operator perspective, it
is highly desirable for the served users to provide a high ratio
since it minimizes the costs and provides a more effective load
control scheme. From the user perspective, the high value of
the ratio indicates great energy savings and reduced consumer
disutility. In order to achieve a high ratio one
should target to proper house insulation or use of efficient
devices (air conditions, etc.).
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SMART GRID, VOL. 3, NO. 3, SEPTEMBER 2012
Fig. 11. Operator Centric graph) Probability to exceed given threshold and
percentage of time exceeding relative to NC, for variable capacity limits.
User Centric graph) User energy saving and consumer disutility. It was assumed
that satisfying RFM.
Fig. 12. Operator Centric graph) Probability to exceed given threshold and
percentage of time exceeding relative to NC, for variable . User
Centric graph) User energy saving and consumer disutility.
V. CONCLUSION
Dynamic control and scheduling schemes for flexible devices
in the smart grid were presented taking into account real time
system’s conditions and user centric fairness issues. The pro-
posed algorithms can provide the required foundations to the
operators to minimize costs and carbon emissions and enable
peak “shave” operations in an effective way. For the smart grid,
the proposed algorithm reflects to the demand response problem
and provides the degrees of freedom for a self-adaptable-self-
optimized network. Two control algorithms were proposed, the
threshold algorithm (TA) and the continuous control (CCA) al-
gorithm. The TA algorithm initiates control commands between
the smart grid and the smart devices when the total load ex-
ceeds a given threshold, which can be static or variable with
time. At the CCA algorithm control commands are continuously
exchanged in an on/off scheme that pushes the user comfort
to the limits. The CCA algorithm provided greater savings but
higher user discomfort. To maintain fairness in a reciprocal fair
scheme, a highest power next (HPN) and a Round Robin sched-
uling scheme were proposed and compared. In terms of savings
from the operator’s perspective, the two scheduling policies did
not cause any dramatic change. From the user’s perspective, the
HPN policy sustains fairness since it obliges users that cause
KOUTITAS: CONTROL OF FLEXIBLE SMART DEVICES IN THE SMART GRID
extra load in the system to increase the number of switch on/off
transitions. It can be seen as a load balancing algorithm that is
trying to keep “almost” equal power consumption between the
users in the network. The choice of the used fairness depends on
the operator’s policy opposite the users. Finally, the consumer
disutility showed a decreasing trend with the operator’s capacity
and the ratio . To achieve an effective penetration of
smart grid services in the future, it is important to maintain the
ratio to high values and thus provide the required
allowable discomfort margins to the control algorithms to adapt
to any load change, minimizing costs at both sides.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The author would like to thank Mellon Energy and Kimatica
for providing important feedback and Prof. Leandros Tassiulas
and Prof. Ioannis Vlahavas for the fruitful discussions on smart
grids and algorithms. Finally, the author would like to thank Dr.
T. Dergiades for the discussions concerning economic aspects
and Mr. Th. Stavropoulos for the measurements on the air con-
ditioning unit.
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George Koutitas was born in Thessaloniki, Greece.
He received the B.Sc. degree in physics from
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece, 2002
and the M.Sc. degree (with distinction) in mobile
and satellite communications from the University of
Surrey, U.K., 2003.
He defended his Ph.D. in radio channel modeling
from the Centre for Communications Systems Re-
search (CCSR) of the University of Surrey in 2007
under a full scholarship. Currently, he is a member of
the academic and research staff at the School of Sci-
ence and Technology of the International Hellenic University, Greece, where he
also works at the Smart IHU project (rad.ihu.edu.gr). Finally, he is a Postdoc at
the University of Thessaly (Dept. Computer Engineering and Telecommunica-
tions). His main research interests are in the area of wireless communications
(modeling and optimization), energy efficient networking, and smart grids. He is
involved in research activities concerning energy efficient network deployments
and design, green IT, and sensor networks/actuators for smart grid applications.
Dr. Koutitas, during his studies, received the Nokia Prize and Advisory Board
Prize 2003 for the best overall performance and best M.Sc. Thesis.