The BeyWatch Conceptual Model for Demand-Side Management

The BeyWatch project designs, develops and evaluates an innovative, energy-aware and user-centric solution, able to provide intelligent energy monitoring/control and power demand balancing at home/building and larger geographical area level. The focus lies in increasing the use of ICT in power systems. We first provide a brief overview of the concepts involved. After that, we highlight one of the crucial problems of demand side management: striving to attain a balance whereby the system meaningfully influences user behavior / electricity consumption while at the same time avoiding the two extremes of either: (a) putting too much strain on consumers by forcing them to second-guess and obsessively optimize the operation of their appliances or (b) taking over control of their household. We present the BeyWatch Conceptual Model that drove the architecture definition of the BeyWatch platform which solves this conundrum. We finish with a presentation of actual architecture deployed for the trials.