---
title: "Randomized Load Control: A Simple Distributed Approach for Scheduling Smart Appliances"
authors:
  - "Menkes van den Briel"
  - "Paul Scott"
  - "Sylvie Thiébaux"
doi: ""
url: "https://ijcai.org/proceedings/2013/428"
pdf: "https://ijcai.org/proceedings/2013/0428.pdf"
venue: "Proceedings of the Twenty-Third International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence"
year: 2013
pages: "2915-2921"
track: ""
keywords:
---

# Randomized Load Control: A Simple Distributed Approach for Scheduling Smart Appliances

Menkes van den Briel, Paul Scott, Sylvie Thiébaux

*Proceedings of the Twenty-Third International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence*, pages 2915-2921.

## Abstract

A significant portion of the electricity network capacity is built to run only a few days a year when demand peaks. As a result, expensive power generation plants and equipment costing millions of dollars are sitting idle most of the time, which increases costs for everyone. We present randomized load control, a simple distributed approach for scheduling smart appliances. Randomized load control schedules the start time of appliances that are programmed to run within a specified time window, so that the aggregate load achieves a given ideal load. Our results show that we do achieve the given ideal load to a great extent. This is remarkable as the approach is completely distributed and preserves customer privacy as the scheduling happens within each house or building separately.