Autonomic control is vital to the success of large-scale distributed open IoT systems, which must simultaneously cater for the interests of several parties. However, developing and maintaining autonomic controllers is highly difficult and costly. To illustrate this problem, this paper considers a system that could be deployed in the future, integ - rating smart homes within a micro smart grid. The paper addresses this problem from a software engineering perspective, building on the authors’ experience with devising autonomic systems and including recent work on integration design patterns. The contribution focuses on a reference model for multi-goal, adaptable and open autonomic systems, exemplified via the development of a concrete autonomic application for the micro smart grid. Our long - term goal is to progressively identify and develop reusable artefacts, such as paradigms, models and frameworks for helping the development of autonomic applications, which are vital for reaching the full potential of IoT systems.