Category 18 April 2019

BEYWATCH - main outcomes

The main outcomes of the BEYWATCH project are categorized in six areas: energy-aware white goods, integration of Renewable Energy Sources (RES) in the household network, individual energy management agent, low-cost in-home communication network, energy distribution management, and business support system.

Several possibilities for reducing power consumption and improving power control in white goods have been studied. New technologies have been assessed in order to achieve: ultra-low power standby mode electronics, power-efficient controlled operation, improved thermal insulation, use of hot-water from solar energy in the heating phases, and sophisticated operational profiles. As a result, a washing machine and a dishwasher have been designed with hot-water management capabilities and a power control interface has been integrated in both devices and also within a fridge.

A case for small-scale renewables in household networks is combined photovoltaic and solar (CPS) panels for producing energy and hot water. Local energy and hot water production enables energy savings in households. Moreover, during lightning hours (thus including peak hours), the electrical energy can be supplied to the network. The CPS system has been installed and integrated with the control interface.

Users have different utilization patterns; therefore, intelligent metering platforms require several capabilities: capturing and modelling the user behaviour and habits, generating user profiles, controlling devices operation in order to enable energy saving based on personal preferences. Metering infrastructure has been sized and tested.

Reliable and ultra low-cost in-home communication and control of white goods and electronic devices have been studied. A software tool subsystem has been developed in order to determine energy consumption schedules. Optimization is achieved by managing devices and a machine-to-machine communication interface has been designed.

Analysis of consumption patterns in a square block or a neighbourhood allows energy supplier companies to balance the energy consumption peaks. Scheduling the demand reduces the need for out-of-schedule power imports from neighbouring countries. Moreover, by efficiently tuning the network equipment, service providers can achieve large reduction in the energy consumption. Therefore, a software subsystem has been designed to smoothly control and balance load at neighbourhood level.

Business support systems allow users to identify their power consumption patterns and suggest measures to diminish it by changing their behaviour (for instance, timing). In order to influence users, a web-based tool with social features has been developed providing a platform to share experiences and eco-games have been designed to promote energy savings among people in the same area.

 

Source:
BeyWatch, Project Final Report.