Residential Energy Management for a Carbon-constrained World: a Disaggregated Thermostat Using Ubiquitous Sensing for Energy Efficiency and Demand Response of Residential Heating and Cooling Systems

The United States and countries throughout the world are facing unprecedented energy challenges in a carbon-constrained world. Rising residential energy consumption and electric power demand play a major role in these energy challenges, and present an environmentally friendly opportunity through demand-side management. This book presents new control technologies for residential energy management that bridge energy efficiency and load management by taking advantage of a new class computing called wireless sensor networks. A survey of residential energy efficiency and load management approaches reveals an opportunity to address heating and cooling through improved control systems. Wireless sensor networks provide an enabling technology to transform the conventional sensor-limited thermostat into a disaggregated system of actuation, sensing, and computation. Experiments show this disaggregated system can provide up to 30% energy savings without sacrificing comfort. This book will be of interest to professionals and researchers in energy, building science, information technology, and sensor networks.