Energy management systems: state of the art and emerging trends

The electric grid is radically evolving and transforming into the smart grid, which is characterized by improved energy efficiency and manageability of available resources. Energy management (EM) systems, often integrated with home automation systems, play an important role in the control of home energy consumption and enable increased consumer participation. These systems provide consumers with information about their energy consumption patterns and help them adopt energy-efficient behavior. The new generation EM systems leverage advanced analytics and communication technologies to offer consumers actionable information and control features, while ensuring ease of use, availability, security, and privacy. In this article, we present a survey of the state of the art in EM systems, applications, and frameworks. We define a set of requirements for EM systems and evaluate several EM systems in this context. We also discuss emerging trends in this area.