Grant, Brad D. B. (2024) Optimising Power Usage for Homes with Solar Panel Systems. [USQ Project]
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Abstract
The installation of residential photovoltaic systems is an entrenched and proliferating practice, as consumers strive to offset the growing cost of electricity. In the wake of reduced feed-in tariffs, grid export continues to be a less viable method for offsetting household energy costs. Energy conscious consumers must now look to increase self-consumption of generated electricity within their homes. A primary obstacle to increasing self-consumption is the temporal gap between peak solar system generation and household appliance usage patterns. This project was undertaken in order to lessen this time difference as much as reasonably practicable, through the design and implementation of an optimal control algorithm that automates appliance usage based upon the current energy yield from a typical PV system. In doing so, this algorithm would serve as the foundation for a wider home energy management system, monitoring and controlling the flow of electricity within a household between appliances, the grid, PV system and any potential Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) to maximise self-consumption and the economic benefit of the homeowner.
For this project, an extensive literature review was undertaken to identify appliance usage patterns in typical Australian households, the yield profiles of typical residential PV systems and existing Home Energy Management Systems (HEMS). In doing so a knowledge gap was identified in the literature, where limited research exists on the technical and economic benefits of consumers deviating from typical usage habits and the automation of appliances to close the temporal gap.
The literature review also identified the ideal structure for the algorithm as a statechart, a variation of a finite state machine that employs orthogonality to facilitate concurrent execution of states. This statechart was designed and constructed in the graphical programming environment Simulink, itself built upon the MATLAB programming language. Appliances were divided into controllable and uncontrollable groups, with controllable appliances denoted as those whose time of use is not expected to impact user convenience. These include hot water systems, pool pumps, washing machines, dryers and dishwashers. The inputs to the statechart consisted of manual uncontrollable appliance patterns for each season, as well as the seasonal yield patterns from a real-world PV system. In order to explore the viability of using BESS to further increase economic benefit, the algorithm was also modelled using input data from the Tesla Powerwall 2.
Results revealed that the algorithm was successful in automating controllable appliance usage based upon solar yield. Techno-economic analysis demonstrated a marked reduction in grid export, grid reliance and the per-kilowatt-hour cost of electricity. A significant improvement in self-consumption was identified for all scenarios tested and the feasibility of BESS installation was improved with the algorithm in place.
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| Item Type: | USQ Project |
|---|---|
| Item Status: | Live Archive |
| Faculty/School / Institute/Centre: | Current – Faculty of Health, Engineering and Sciences - School of Engineering (1 Jan 2022 -) |
| Supervisors: | Wen, Paul |
| Qualification: | Bachelor of Engineering (Honours) (Electrical and Electronic) |
| Date Deposited: | 07 Oct 2025 23:11 |
| Last Modified: | 07 Oct 2025 23:11 |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | photovoltaic systems; residential; solar panels |
| URI: | https://sear.unisq.edu.au/id/eprint/53042 |
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