Optimal Demand-Side Management for Joint Privacy-Cost Optimization with Energy Storage

The smart meter (SM) privacy problem is addressed together with the cost of energy for the consumer. It is assumed that a storage device, e.g., an electrical battery, is available to the consumer, which can be utilized both to achieve privacy and to reduce the energy cost by modifying the energy consumption profile. Privacy is measured via the squared-error distortion between the SM readings, which are reported to the utility provider (UP), and a target profile, whereas time-of-use pricing is considered for energy cost calculation. Extensive numerical results are presented to evaluate the performance of the proposed strategy. The trade-off between the achievable privacy and the energy cost is studied by taking into account the limited capacity of the battery as well as the capability to sell energy to the UP.