A review of energy management methods for residential renewable energy systems

Over the last decades, renewable energy sources have attracted significant interest as a feasible solution to mitigate environmental issues and reduce the dependence on the traditional sources for electricity generation. Residential renewable energy systems and, in particular, household solar systems and related technologies have been growing considerably all over the world. As a result, a wide range of control techniques and energy management methods has been proposed to improve the energy generation and consumption inside the households. The control techniques and technologies enable the residential consumers to adapt their energy consumption to the time-pricing and new services of the utility grid, and improve the quality of the grid by shifting loads to the off-peak hours in an optimal way with minimum customer intervention. Besides, they can control the household smart appliances through local networks and communicate with the regional smart grid control center. This chapter is planned to provide a brief study on the current technologies of residential renewable energy systems, different methods of energy management, control techniques, and standards in both off-grid and grid-connected residential renewable energy systems. In addition, various control objectives, including minimizing the operation cost, maximizing the revenue due to the electricity market price, minimizing the operation effect on the utility grid, improving power quality, safety, and reliability, are discussed