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The implementation of demand-sensitive pricing schemes is a proven strategy for an industry to provide more service within capacity constraints of the current service system infrastructure, thus postponing or avoiding huge capital expenses. The ongoing transformation of electric grids into “smart grids” provides the basis to implement demand-sensitive pricing aimed at using the electric power infrastructure more efficiently. This creates benefits for the end-users (by lowering their electricity bill without degrading comfort levels), the operators (by managing the peak and flattening the aggregate demand curve, which may permit to meet forecasted demand growth with the current portfolio of generation sources) and the environment (by avoiding building new generation units). In this context of migration to smart grids demand-sensitive pricing of electricity will become the standard pricing mechanism. Therefore, it is necessary to make the most of short-term price signals, comfort requirements and user preferences to induce changes in electricity-consuming behavior.
The Energy Box is an energy management system consisting of a hardware device and algorithms coordinating in an autonomous manner the management of electricity use, storage and selling back to the grid for the typical small consumer of electricity in the residential and services / industrial sectors. This is an automated energy management system that mimics the individual consumer’s decision making process under the same conditions (of the grid, in-door comfort and air quality, occupancy patterns, weather, etc.).
The Energy Box will exploit the flexibility that consumers generally have in the timing of their electricity usage to induce changes in their electricity-consuming patterns through time-varying electricity pricing (which can range from simple time-of-use rates to actual real-time pricing) to achieve a total system optimal control. This becomes feasible with the “smart grid” infrastructure, including two-way communication and short-interval meter reading, complemented with sensor networks in one’ home or small business.