Home energy management systems (HEMS) have attracted much attention in recent years for energy efficiency and cost savings. Home energy scheduling is an important function of the HEMS

especially for thermostatically controlled appliances (TCAs). Optimization interval is a basic parameter in home energy scheduling

a topic that has been seldom studied before. This paper studies the impacts of optimization interval on home energy scheduling taking into consideration four scheduling strategies for TCAs. A tracking strategy is developed to arrive at a suboptimal solution while avoiding unacceptable solving time. The impact mechanism of optimization interval is analyzed. The optimization interval takes into account the scheduling ability of HEMS

flexibility of TCAs

the feasibility of scheduling

scheduling performances

user experiences

and model accuracy. The flexibility of TCAs

which depends on optimization interval

is defined and modeled. Two time division methods are proposed

namely

consistent interval division method (CIDM) and inconsistent interval division method (IIDM). Numerical simulation is carried out to verify the analysis. The results show that optimization interval impacts the flexibility

feasibility

and performance of scheduling. The proposed tracking strategy is seen as an effective method for HEMS.