CASANET Energy Management System: a Wireless

Sensors based solution for Heaters Control

Najem Naji Mohamed Riduan Abid Nissrine Krami Driss Ben Haddou
ENSA School of Science and ENSA Engineering Technology
Ibn-Toufail University Engineering Ibn-Toufail University Department
Kenitra, Morocco Al Akhawayn University Kenitra, Morocco Houston University
n.naji@aui.ma Ifrane, Morocco krami.nissrine@univ- Houston, USA
r.abid@aui.ma ibntofail.ac.ma dbenhaddou@uh.edu

ABSTRACT
Energy Efficient Buildings (EEB) rely on Energy Management
System (EMS) to optimize energy consumption, and on
Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) to implement
relevant energy policies. Data acquisition constitutes a major ICT
component for EMS, and consists mostly on deploying appropriate
Wireless Sensor Network (WSN). The acquired data is then
processed to monitor building’s loads and appliances.
In this paper, we present an EMS solution developed in a real-
world project (CASANET EMS) deployed at a university campus.
At this stage of the project, CASANET EMS controls electrical
heaters and is based on the classical control method. This control
method takes as input several parameters to decide on the adequate
timing for turning heaters On/Off. The CASANET EMS is shaped
to fit educational, administrative, and residential buildings at the
university campus.
ICT combines between Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) for data
acquisition [6], and a software or application to monitor and control
the building appliances. For instance, Heating, Ventilation, Air
Conditioning (HVAC) and lighting system [7].
As an educational institution, Al Akhwayn University in Ifrane
(AUI) has more than 40 buildings (educational, residential and
administrative buildings). AUI is located in a cold area where
heating is a must, especially during winter seasons. To serve this
purpose, AUI is equipped with more than 2130 electrical heaters,
with an average consumption of 1750 Wh each. Hence, heaters do
consume an important amount of energy during cold seasons. This
results in a high electricity bill each month. As an example, the
figure bellow presents the university’s electricity consumption
during fall semester of 2017.

Keywords
EMS; ICT; EEB; WSN; IoT; Energy Policy; FSM; HVAC.

1. INTRODUCTION
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has
estimated that in near future electricity demand will reach the
expected growth in global electricity production [1]. Around the
world, buildings represent nearly 40% of the energy used globally
[1]. IPCC said that if we include the energy consumed in building
construction, this number grows to more than 50%. This
consumption is rising fast due to the economic development and
the real estate evolution in many countries. For this reasons, the
people who are leading business in commercial, residential and
educational fields are invited to turn their traditional buildings into
Energy Efficient Buildings (EEB) [2]. This is achieved by adopting
an energy policy [3]. The energy policy is applied through an
Energy Management System (EMS) [4]. This later (EMS) requires Figure 1 Electricity consumption of the university during fall
Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) to apply the semester of 2017.
Energy policy [5].

The consumption illustrated in the figure above, result in a high

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ICSDE'18, October 18–20, 2018, Rabat, Morocco
© 2018 Association for Computing Machinery.
ACM ISBN 978-1-4503-6507-9/18/10…$15.00
https://doi.org/10.1145/3289100.3289124
electricity bill. For example, the university paid more than 120.000
USD in December 2017. To lower the electricity bill, the university
opted for the development of an energy policy as well as an EMS
to control the heaters. For this reason, the CASANET EMS project
aims to develop energy efficient control method to reduce energy
consumption in buildings by using ICT. The outcomes of this
project are as follows: first, an intelligent framework that will
monitor and control loads of the building. Second, a database to
archive user behavior and environmental data. Third, a software
tool to control HVAC appliances.
The rest of this paper is organized as follows: First, we give a
background about the EMS and ICT components. Second, we The Building
present CASANET EMS for heaters control. This includes the
architecture of the solution as well as the control approach using Sensors/Actuators
Finite State Machine (FSM). Third, we present some results of the
CASANET EMS testbed. These results include the theoretical and Communication Network
real energy flow along with the control approach. Fourth, we
Application/Software
conclude the work presented in this paper along with the future
work.

2. BACKGROUND
EMS are mostly used in buildings with a huge number of occupants Figure 3 EMS interacts with the building through sensors,
such as residential and commercial buildings. As presented in actuators, and a communication network.
figure 2, the EMS applies the energy policy, mandated by the
energy department of the building, using ICT Technologies. The second layer, as figure 3 demonstrates, is the software that
takes decisions. This software takes decisions based on two
parameters. First parameter is the received data from sensors.
Second parameter is the energy policy applied. The software
Energy ICT EMS communicates with sensors and actuators via a communication
policy network that can be a mixture of the following technologies:
ZigBee [8], Zwave [9], Wi-Fi, Ethernet, Bluetooth, or Infrared.
Figure 2 EMS requires ICT to apply the energy policy.

While the energy policy is a set of rules, the ICT is a set of hardware
and software components that allows the interaction with the
building’s loads and appliances.
ICT systems intervene in two phases to deliver tools that are vitally
needed to collect, process and manage data:
 Study phase: ICT can be instrumental in achieving more
efficient use of energy through simulation, modelling,
analysis, monitoring and visualization. These tools are
needed during the study phase towards putting in place a
"whole building approach" for implementing energy
efficient building.
 Implementation phase: ICT play an essential role in
implementing the energy policy and measuring its Figure 4 Information and Communication Technologies used
effectiveness. Data gathered by the ICT system will in Energy Management System.
facilitate the identification of the energy waste and
ultimately highlight the best practices.
In the previous figure 4, open source software like Freedomotic
2.1 Components of ICT systems for Energy [10] have the possibility to communicate with different Internet of
Efficient Building Things (IoT) devices like Arduinino [11] and RaspberryPi [12].
This communication is enabled by programming languages such as
In figure 3, there are three ICT components for EEB. First, sensor
python, JavaScript and C. The IoT devices are equipped with a
and actuator modules for data sampling and actuation. Second, a
variety of sensor modules like temperature, motion, and gas.
Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) for transmitting data and
commands. Third, the software or application that monitors and 2.2 EMS control methods
controls the building appliances, loads, generators etc.
In addition to providing comfort and healthy environment under the
EMS in EEB requires data gathering to study and control the dynamic working conditions, HVAC systems Control have a
building. EMS consists of the physical layer which interacts with significant impact on the energy efficiency of buildings. The
the building’s appliances, doors, and windows. This layer is the control methods in EMS are divided into four groups. The classical
Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) that contains communication control On/Off, the hard control, the soft control, and the hybrid
network, sensors, and actuators. Sensors monitor physical control [13]. The classical control is the most commonly used
phenomenon. For example, temperature, humidity, light, motion, technique for example, On/Off. This control is used in the scenarios
occupancy, CO2 concentration, and power consumption. Actuators, where the existing HVAC does not allow more than switching On
on the other hand, control the building’s appliances. For example, and Off appliances. The On/Off controller uses a max and min
switching On and Off the heaters. The communication network thresholds to regulate the temperature within that bound. The
delivers data from sensors to application and it transmits commands On/Off is the most intuitive and easiest control to implement.
from application to actuators. Besides, On/Off controllers are very cheap than the others. Table 1
lists the different control methods that the EMS can apply.
 Table 1 EMS Control Methods. On one hand, the EMS’s hardware layer is a data acquisition system
which is based on the WSN. This WSN is a set of sensors that
Group Control Method sample temperature, humidity and motion (Figure 5-a). These
 On/Off sensors are based on Arduino programming board. When the sensor
 P samples the environment it sends the data via the WSN which is
Classical Control
 PI based on XBee radio frequency module [16]. This WSN is
 PID implemented as a mesh topology where nodes route data towards
 Nonlinear Control the gateway device. This device links the WSN and the TCP/IP
 Robust Control network to which the application server is connected. The
Hard Control  Optimal Control command coming from the application server is forwarded to the
appropriate actuator (Figure 5-b) also via the gateway.
 Predictive Control
 Gain Scheduling PID On the other hand, the EMS software layer is a web application,
 Adaptive Fuzzy hosted in a server, through which the user can declare knowledge
 Adaptive Neuro about buildings, rooms, appliances and energy policy rules. On the
Hybrid Control same server run different Finite State Machines. The web
 Fuzzy PID
 P, PI, PID application assigns an FSM to a given room in order to perform the
 Fuzzy Logic Control appropriate control based on the energy policy. Figure 6 presents
Soft Control the general architecture of the CASANET EMS.
 Neural Network Control
 PMAC Control
 PRAC Control
 Preview Control
Other control
 TPSC Control
methods
 DFL Control
 Reinforcement Learning
Control

3. CASANET EMS FOR HEATERS

CONTROL
The CASANET EMS is developed based on the Plan-Do-Check–
Act (PDCA) cycle [14]. It aims to put into place an EMS to control
Al Akhawayn University campus heaters [15]. This EMS
communicate with sensors and actuators via a WSN, and it applies
a classical control by turning On and Off heaters. This control is
based on the energy policy rules which are implemented using
FSM. In this section, we first present the solution architecture in
terms of hardware and software. Then we present the approach
behind the classical control On/Off.
3.1 EMS solution architecture
On the way to develop the EMS, we first categorized the
university’s buildings into three types. Administrative building,
educational building and residential building. This categorization is
based on the occupant’s behavior which varies depending on the
building’s type. Afterwards, we wrote an energy policy blue print
that takes into consideration several parameters to take action upon
the heater. For example, the building type, the room type, season of
the year, holiday, weekend, schedule of classes, room occupancy,
temperature, scheduled events etc. Based on this energy policy, at
any given moment and location, there’s a rule/action that should be
applied on the heater of that location.
(a) (b)
Figure 5 WSN nodes: (a) Sensor and (b) Actuator.
Figure 6 CASANET EMS general architecture.
The web application also manages the WSN. For example, when a
sensor node ‘A’ is placed in a room ‘B’, as it is declared to the
EMS, data coming from sensor ‘A’ corresponds to conditions of
room ‘B’. The same way, actuators are also declared to the
application server in order to link them with the appropriate heaters.
3.2 Classical control method (On/Off)
The CASANET EMS adopts the classical control method (On/Off)
because this the business requirement of the energy department.
This control is based on a set of predefined rules in the energy
policy documentation. To apply these rules, the EMS represent
each rule by a state in the FSM. For example, when the EMS is
about to apply a control upon a heater, it first look at the current
conditions (season, building type, room type, day/night...etc.), then
it constructs an FSM and links it to the heaters of that room. FSM
are is the adequate way to implement control methods in HVAC
systems [17]
Conditions of a given room include the current temperature,
humidity, and occupancy. Besides, the door and window situation
(open or closed). These conditions are transmitted to the server
running the application via a WSN. The data base server contains
declared knowledge. For instance, the building type, source of
energy (biomass/electricity), room type (bedroom, classroom,
laboratory, office, meeting room, auditorium, number of heaters,
number of windows, etc...). The room volume is an important piece
of information alongside the outside temperature that help the
heating system calculate the needed time to heat the room. The
database also contains scheduled events, schedule of classes, etc...
The CASANET EMS takes into consideration the previous input
parameters along with the energy policy rules to control the
heater(s). This control is implemented an FSM.
Figure 7 illustrates the state diagram of the FSM that controls a
laboratory room called Linux Laboratory. This FSM has three
different states. In State0 all the heaters are Off. This state runs
when the heating process is disabled, for example, during the
holidays. A transition occurs from State0 to State1 when heating is
enabled, for instance during the working days. This transition is
conditioned by having the temperature value of the Linux
Laboratory less than $Th_min$. When State1 is running all the
heaters are On. The transition from State0 to State2 will occur when
heating is enabled and the temperature value is more than
$Th_max$. In State2 only two heaters are On while the other two
heaters are Off.
Moving from State1 to State2 is the flacuation process which is
possible only if heating is enabled. When the temperature value is
above $Th_max$, State2 runs. While State1 runs only if the
temperature value goes bellow $Th_min$.
Figure 7 FSM State diagram that controls Linux Laboratory
heaters.
The parameters that intervene to enable the heating process are
triggered from the energy policy. For instance, heating a room (of
a laboratory type), in cold seasons, is enabled by default from 7:00
AM to 6:00 PM during the working days of the week. The heating
is disabled by default out of these times, but it can be enabled when
motion is detected.
The CASANET EMS solution generates an FSM for each location
based on the energy policy applied. The energy policy itself varies
depending on the building type, the room type, season of the year,
weekend or weekday, day or night, holidays or working days. The
result of such policy variation, is a huge number of possible FSM
to run.
In On/Off control, an FSM can have only two states. However,
CASANET EMS takes into consideration the number of heaters in
a room to generate all possible states of an FSM. As a result, the
number of states in an FSM, that controls a given room, depends on
the number of heaters in the room itself. For example, the Linux
Laboratory has three different states because it is equipped with
four heaters. First, the state where all the heaters are On. Second,
the state where all heaters are Off. Third, the state where only two
heaters are On.
4. TESTBED RESULTS
The Linux laboratory has four heaters, three facades on the outside
of the building, four windows and a volume of 226.8 m3. Each
heater consumes 1750 Wh. The laboratory does not have a fixed
schedule. During the day, researchers belonging to this laboratory
are always present. They might even stay at the lab during the night.
For this reason, the control method will be applied during the day
regardless of the occupancy. While during the night, the control
method will be applied only if there is occupancy.
The control method aims at adjusting the laboratory’s temperature
taking into consideration the room’s volume, the facades on the
outside, and the outside temperature. Besides, the control method
also takes into consideration the number of heaters and their heating
capacity. These parameters help the EMS calculate the time
required to adjust the temperature of the given room.
Table 2 Linux Laboratory conditions and properties.
Number of heaters
Number of outside
Total Watt-hour
Floor number
temperature
temperature
Room type
Current
Volume
Outside
facades
Laborat 226.8 3 Groun 18 13 4 7000
-ory m3 -d °C °C Wh
4.1 Heat transfer calculation
In this experiment, we first calculated the theoretical time required
to heat this laboratory till the temperature reaches 22°C. For this
reason, we first calculated the energy needed and we used the
following equation (1):
𝑄 = 𝑚 ∗ 𝑐 ∗ ∆𝑇 (1)
Where m means the volume of the air in the laboratory (m=226.8
m3), C stands for the specific heat capacity of the air (C=1005) and
∆T is the change in temperature (∆T=22°C – 18°C=4°C). As a
result, the required amount of electricity (Q) is 1094.11 W.
The time needed (T) to heat the laboratory at power P (P=7000 Wh)
is as follows (2):
𝑄
𝑇= (2)
𝑃
Theoretically with complete insulation the time required is 9
minutes and 37 seconds. This is absolutely impossible regarding
heat transfer. Especially, that the Linux lab has three facades
looking to the outside with low insulation. Besides, the laboratory
has four windows and one door of wood. Moreover, the heater
needs few minutes to reach the maximum heat output.
In the second experiment we theoretically calculated the energy
flow in the laboratory, then we compared it we the results obtained
in the first experiment. This calculation took into consideration the
construction materials of the laboratory such as walls, windows,
door and roof. To calculate the heat flow at the Linux laboratory
we used the following formula (3) where Qf, is the total loss of the
laboratory. For each construction material k (wall, roof, floor,
window and door), U is the value which represent the loss per m2
and A is the area surface of the material k. ΔT is the inside/outside
temperature difference.
 𝑛 (Te). Then we multiplied this difference time by the energy
consumption of the four heaters (E). Afterwards, we divided the
𝑄𝑓 = ∑(𝑈𝑘 ∗ 𝐴𝑘 ∗ ΔT) (3) result by (h) which is 60 minutes. For this reason, we used the
𝑘=1 following formula (4):
Based on the laboratory’s measurements, the following table (𝑇𝑟 − 𝑇𝑒 ) ∗ 𝐸
presents the loss of each construction element as well as the total 𝑅= (4)
energy: ℎ
Table 3 Energy flow per construction material. Based on the calculation result, the real lost energy, during the time
(Tr), is 773.5 Watt. Since the four heaters produced 1866.66 Watt
to heat the laboratory, the lost energy then represents 41% of the
material
Construction

A (Area in m2)

Watt/m2)
U(Loss

in °C)
ure difference
ΔT(Temperat

in Watt
to energy loss
Contribution
total energy that was produced.

4.2 Temperature fluctuation in heating

process
in

Classical control method On/Off The control method that we apply

Floor 75.60 0.25 9 170.10 consists of having two thresholds. A pair of $Th_max$ and
m2 $Th_min$ is assigned to each room type. The decision upon the
values of $Th_max$ and $Th_min$ depends on the room type, and
Roof 75.60 0.15 9 102.06
room volume. The room’s temperature should always be between
m2
these two values. For example, in the Linux laboratory, when the
Walls 79.26 0.35 9 249.66 room’s temperature is less than $Th_min$ all the heaters are
m2 switched On. They keep heating the laboratory till the temperature
Window 8.93 2.00 9 160.74 value exceeds $Th_max$. At this point of time, the EMS switches
-s and m2 off two heaters and keeps the two other ones On. As a result, the
door temperature value starts decreasing slowly till it gets below
$Th_min$, then the EMS switches all the heaters On. When there
Total 682.56 is no need to heat the laboratory, for example during the weekend,
the system switches Off all the heaters.

Based on the equation as well as the data in the previous table, the
total number of watts that were lost is 682.56 Watt. The real heat
loss is far more than what is estimated based on the calculations.
This is due to the poor insulation, and the time required for the
heater to really start heating the air.
Figure 8 bellow presents the theoretical time needed time with total
insulation versus the real needed time to go from 18°C to 22°C
under the same conditions stated in table 2. This figure shows that
the heat flow through the walls, windows, door, floor and roof is
too high. As a result, an important amount of energy is just wasted.

Figure 9 Temperature fluctuation at the Linux Laboratory.

Figure 9 illustrates the fluctuation of the temperature in the Linux

Figure 8 Real time needed versus the estimated time to heat
the Linux Laboratory based on the calculated heat loss.
To calculate the real lost energy (R) to heat the laboratory, taking
into consideration the estimated energy flow, we calculated the
difference between the real time needed (Tr) and the estimated time
laboratory. The four heaters at the laboratory start heating the air
till the temperature is above $Th_max$, then the EMS switches Off
two heaters. As a result the temperature starts going down till it is
below the $Th_min$, the EMS switches On the all the heaters. This
way the temperature fluctuates between two bounds that makes the
environment in the laboratory comfortable and heated.
5. CONCLUSION
In this paper, we presented the CASANET EMS components which
are the ICT systems along with the energy policy. Besides, we
stated the ICT hardware and software used in EMS implementation.
The ICT uses WSN for data acquisition and control. In this paper
we presented the CASANET EMS solution which is dedicated to
control heaters of a University campus. This EMS aims at turning [5]
the university’s buildings into EEB to lower the electricity bill. This
EMS applies the energy policy using ICT technologies such as
WSN and HVAC systems. This EMS, which is under development,
uses WSN for data acquisition and control. This WSN consists of [6]
IoT hardware such as Arduino and RaspberryPi programming
boards along with actuator and sensor modules to sense the physical
world and act upon the heaters.
[7]
The CASANET EMS controls the heaters using the classical
method On/Off. However, this classical control uses a variety of
Finite States Machines which are based on the energy policy [8]
applied. This variety of FSM helps the CASANET EMS to catch
up with the energy policy rules that depend on different changing
parameters. For example, season of the year, day or night, weekend
or weekday etc... Hence, CASANET EMS applies the energy [9]
policy mandated by the energy department of the university.
In this paper, we present the results of a laboratory testbed. In this
testbed, we measured the needed time to heat a laboratory room till [10]
it reaches a certain temperature value. Besides, the amount of heat
loss due to the poor insulation of the building. This testbed took
into consideration the outside temperature, initial temperature, [11]
laboratory volume, number of heaters, facades looking to the
outside, and the construction material of the building. [12]
6. FUTURE WORK
The CASANET EMS is still in the development phase. This EMS [13]
controls the heaters of a laboratory room in an educational building.
This EMS will also include faculty offices and classrooms as a first
step to make the first EEB in the university. Afterwards, the
solution will be generalized on the other two types of buildings [14]
(administrative and residential buildings).
In addition to the development of the CASANET EMS, the energy
department of the university is opting for alternative energy
[15]
sources. For instance, along with the development of CASANET
EMS, the ongoing project is the integration of renewable energy
source by putting into place solar PV. These solar PV will establish
a nano-grid at the university campus. These solar panels will [16]
generate electricity that will be stored and used later to serve the
building’s loads.
7. ACKNOWLEDGMENT [17]
This work is performed under CASANET (Context-Aware Sensor-
Actuator Networks for Energy-Efficient Buildings) project (2016-
2018), which is funded by « le Ministere de l’Enseignement
Superieur, de la Recherche Scientifique et de la Formation des
Cadres (MESRSFC) » and « le Centre National pour la Recherche
Scientifique et Technique (CNRST) ». This work is also sponsored
by US-NAS/USAID under the PEER Cycle5 project granted #5-
398, entitled “Towards Smart Microgrid: Renewable Energy
Integration into Smart Buildings”.
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