Automatic system for monitoring electric power consumption

A system for managing devices supplied through a power grid, each device being configured to consume over time electric power according to at least one respective power profile when operating, the system comprising at least one unit interfaced with the devices for exchanging data, the at least one unit being configured to:

• collect power profile data indicative of the power profiles of said devices;
• generate a time schedule of the device operations by distributing over time start times of the power profiles in such a way that at any time the total power consumption of the devices is kept under a maximum power threshold of the power grid, wherein:
• the at least one unit is configured to generate said time schedule through a particle swarm optimization approach by:
• a) randomly generating a population of candidate time schedules within a search space comprising a set of the possible candidate time schedules;
• b) subdividing the population of candidate time schedules in a first group of candidate time schedules and in a second group of candidate time schedules;
• c) performing phases d) and e) at least once;
• d) moving the candidate time schedules of the first group in the search space following a random walk based on a stable probability distribution having an infinite variance;
• e) moving the candidate time schedules of the second group in the search space following a random walk based on a probability distribution having a finite variance;
• f) selecting a candidate time schedule based on a cost of said candidate time schedule corresponding to its position in the search space calculated by means of a cost function.