Intelligent Energy Management Systems -- A Review

TL;DR

This review paper discusses intelligent energy management systems across various building types, analyzing their control methods, optimization techniques, and potential improvements to reduce energy waste and environmental impact.

Contribution

It categorizes existing systems into direct and indirect control types, providing a comprehensive analysis of their strengths, weaknesses, and future enhancement opportunities.

Findings

Systems use real-time monitoring and automation for energy savings

Optimization techniques vary across control strategies

Potential improvements include advanced AI integration

Abstract

Climate change has become a major problem for humanity in the last two decades. One of the reasons that caused it, is our daily energy waste. People consume electricity in order to use home/work appliances and devices and also reach certain levels of comfort while working or being at home. However, even though the environmental impact of this behavior is not immediately observed, it leads to increased CO2 emissions coming from energy generation from power plants. Confronting such a problem efficiently will affect both the environment and our society. Monitoring energy consumption in real-time, changing energy wastage behavior of occupants and using automations with incorporated energy savings scenarios, are ways to decrease global energy footprint. In this review, we study intelligent systems for energy management in residential, commercial and educational buildings, classifying them in two major categories depending on whether they provide direct or indirect control. The article also discusses what the strengths and weaknesses are, which optimization techniques do they use and finally, provide insights about how these systems can be improved in the future.