A New Architecture for Reduction of Energy Consumption of Home Appliances

This paper presents work in progress by the AIM consortium [AIM, 2008] in developing and demonstrating a new information and communication technologies (ICT) architecture for modelling, virtualising and managing the energy consumption of home appliances, supporting Europe’s Action Plan on Energy Efficiency [EC, 2006] of using the opportunities offered by ICT to achieve technology-driven energy efficiency gains. The architecture aims at fostering a harmonised technological frame for profiling and optimizing the energy consumption patterns of home appliances. The intention is to offer users a number of standalone- and operator-based residential services that will allow them to manage efficiently the energy consumed in households. To make these services possible the frame adopts a generalised method for household appliances management, which is based on an accurate modelling of operational modes of appliances and the ability of the home network to switch on or off even some of their internal functions without limiting their control just to the active or stand-by states As a pilot application, the appliances being considered for the first implementation of the architecture are: - White goods, such as refrigerators, ovens, washing machines, dryers; - Audiovisual equipment, such as TVs, DVDs, Set-top-Boxes; - Home communication devices, such as wireless routers, DECT phones, residential gateways, modems. The requirements defined for the architecture concern mainly usability aspects of power management functions, integration with the home network and service deployment. The two major challenges are (i) energy saving and (ii) architecture’s long-term sustainability.