Demand side management using expert system

Electricity supply is essential for any economic growth. The electric demand growth requires an increase of the installed capacity to meet consumption. An alternative is the better use of installed capacity. Demand side management (DSM) has been increasingly adopted by utilities as a subroutine for huge investments and as a method for resource use optimization. DSM is the ability of a grid to continue normal operation despite unplanned causalities to the operating equipment, known as contingencies. The DSM is essentially concerned with predicting the vulnerability of the current state (normal) to a set of postulated next contingencies. The system operates in three different states normal, emergency and restorative states. Recently, artificial intelligence (AI) based expert system procedures have been adopted for the grid management problem. An expert system (ES) is a computer application that solves complicated problems that would otherwise require extensive human expertise. To do so, it simulates the human reasoning process by applying specific knowledge and inferences. The system is not case oriented. It is composed of a main module, which, based on a set of rules, selects one of many possible solutions to perform DSM. The system has been tested using data from different industrial, residential and commercial applications.