  The smart meter (SM) privacy problem is addressed together with the cost of
energy for the user. It is assumed that a storage device, e.g., an electrical
battery, is available to the user, which can be utilized both to achieve
privacy and to reduce the energy cost by modifying the energy consumption
profile. Privacy is measured via the mean squared-error between the SM
readings, which are reported to the utility provider (UP), and a target load;
while time-of-use pricing is considered for energy cost calculation. The
optimal trade-off between the achievable privacy and the energy cost is
characterized by taking into account the limited capacity of the battery as
well as the capability to sell energy to the UP. Extensive numerical
simulations are presented to evaluate the performance of the proposed strategy
for different system settings.
