# Experimental Study of 6 LoPLC for Home Energy Management Systems
## 1 Introduction  
As modern society's appetite for energy appears insatiable, two fundamental issues are challenging the current energy generation-consumption model, namely sustainability and energy security. Natural reserves are fast depleting, and energy demand is soaring; undoubtedly due to industrialisation and population growth. While exploration of new deposits (hydrocarbon) is a possibility, it is certainly not sustainable [1]. This has given rise to new global initiatives aimed at (i) improving energy efficiency and (ii) exploring more renewable uptake. Providing energy management techniques with a view toward improving efficiency is the main focus of this paper. Amongst the smart grid domains, the Home Area Network (HAN) is perhaps of most interest to consumers. This is first because it controls the operation of in-home appliances, and secondly,it offers an environment for voluntary curtailment or scheduling of in-home loads [2]. Lastly, the HAN empowers consumers to become active stakeholders in the energy market through an emerging concept known as prosuming. In terms of load reduction, consumers are motivated by various incentives either to reduce usage at peak periods and achieve some savings when the tariff is high or enjoy peak time rebates offered by the utility. As the deployment of Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) becomes commonplace, sophisticated monitoring and control capabilities are actively required within the home to optimise energy consumption in a bid to improve comfort and satisfaction levels without compromising safety. These capabilities can be realised through the integration of everyday appliances [3], Distributed Generating Systems (DGS) and Distributed Storage Systems (DSS) with a control unit, also known as the Home Energy Management System (HEMS) controller. The role of the HEMS controller is to monitor and coordinate the operations of the loads and DERs in the most efficient ways [4; 5]. It has been shown in [6; 7; 8] that the integration of in-home controllable loads with HEMS could potentially result in significant fiscal savings. By dynamically controlling the behaviour of smart appliances to adapt to the grid conditions and market dynamics, additional benefits, such as sustainability and operational efficiency, on the utility side can be achieved; this is generally referred to as Demand Side Management (DSM). The authors in [9; 10] also opened that the awareness of energy consumption could improve efficiency by as much as 12%-15% in some cases. While many of the existing HEMS solutions are retrofits, some rely on proprietary techniques to transmit the control messages required to trigger a change in operational states of domestic appliances or provide low-level visibility of energy consumption. As the drive toward energy efficiency gained prominence and many Energy Management System (EMSs) were released into the market, it became necessary to develop communication standards for connecting smart devices in the home. However, since networks built on such standards are expected to promote efficiency, the processes and protocols associated with the communication standards are themselves expected to be energy efficient. This is why many current implementations of EMSs are based on LoWPAN (IEEE-802.15.4). In this paper, we refer to 6 LoPLC as the power line equivalent of 6 LoWPAN. Taking into account the electrical properties of various cables, the authors in [11] developed a power line channel based on Transmission Line Theory (TLT) on a similar framework to NS-3. These result in a power line module that can be integrated and run within the NS-3 environment. Using this Power Line Communication (PLC) module, we create a model of the 6 LoPLC-enabled HEMS network that uses the same characteristics as implemented in Hanadu (Hanadu is a registered technology of Xsilon Ltd. (patent under grant)) evaluation hardware. To cater to the low data rate of HEMS applications, an adaptation layer is included in the model.