# Smart home energy management for sustainable socioeconomic development in Egyptian households

## TL;DR

A low-cost smart home energy system is developed for Egyptian households to reduce energy use and costs while promoting sustainability.

## Contribution

A context-specific, hardware-minimal smart energy system tailored for Egypt's energy pricing and climate is introduced.

## Key findings

- The comfort zone strategy achieved the highest annual savings and fastest payback.
- PV-battery integration provided the best long-term return on investment.
- Widespread use in Cairo could cut CO₂ emissions by over 1.4 million tons yearly.

## Abstract

Smart Home Energy Management Systems (SHEMS) play a critical role in reducing household energy consumption. However, existing solutions often depend on complex infrastructure and dynamic pricing models, limiting their applicability in developing countries like Egypt, where Inclining Block Rate (IBR) tariffs are in effect. This study presents a low-cost, hardware-minimal SHEMS prototype designed for Egypt’s socio-economic and climatic context. The system incorporates a comfort zone-based load scheduling algorithm, which allows users to define acceptable used area for according to its facilities and input the number of active household members over three timeframes (hourly, daily, weekly). Based on this input, the system recommends selective air-conditioner usage to minimize costs without compromising comfort, while leaving the final decision to the user. This approach promotes energy awareness and preserves user autonomy. The prototype integrates photovoltaic (PV) generation and battery storage. Results show that the comfort zone strategy yielded the highest annual savings and fastest payback, while the PV-battery system offered the best long-term return. Environmentally, Greater Cairo scale deployment could reduce CO₂ emissions by over 1.4 million ton annually. The system aligns with SDG 7 (Affordable and Clean Energy) and SDG 13 (Climate Action), offering a scalable, context-sensitive solution for sustainable energy management in resource-constrained settings.

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1038/s41598-026-35705-0.