SmartPlug: Reducing energy costs with price-aware scheduling of electrical devices

In this paper, we propose the use of SmartPlug, a scheduler for electrical devices which can operate temporarily autonomous to a constant power supply (such as battery-driven devices). The objective of SmartPlug is to reduce efforts for energy by scheduling devices to times when the energy price is low. The freed resources could be sold on the intraday market if profitable. From a long-term view, the approach can synchronize energy producers/suppliers and consumers. SmartPlug combines market data, customer facilities and builds upon these components a price-based control mechanism (service). Our concept is applicable as an implementation demonstrates. Its usefulness was validated by a simulation over real market data. It shows noteworthy savings.