Energy consumption management in Smart Homes: An M-Bus communication system

Energy consumption management in Smart Home environments relies on the implementation of systems of cooperative intelligent objects named Smart Meters. In order for devices to cooperate to smart metering applications´ execution, they need to make their information available. In this paper we propose a framework that aims at managing energy consumption of controllable appliances in groups of Smart Homes belonging to the same neighbourhood or condominium. We consider not only electric power distribution, but also alternative energy sources such as solar panels. We define a communication paradigm based on M-Bus for the acquisition of relevant data by managing nodes. We also provide a lightweight algorithm for the distribution of the available alternative power among houses. Performance evaluation of experiments in simulation mode prove that the proposed framework does not jeopardise the lifetime of Smart Meters, particularly in typical situations where managed devices do not continuously turn on and off.