Filtering in non-Intrusive load monitoring

Being able to track appliances energy usage without the need of sensors can help occupants reduce their energy consumption. Non-intrusive load monitoring (NILM) is one name for this topic. One of the hardest problems NILM faces is the ability to run unsupervised – discovering appliances without prior knowledge – and to run independent of the differences in appliance mixes and operational characteristics found in various countries and regions. This thesis showcases two filters that are used to denoise power signals, which results in better clustering accuracy for NILM event based methods. Both filters show to outperform a state-of-the-art denoising filter, in terms of run-time. A fully unsupervised NILM solution is presented, the algorithm is based on a hybrid knapsack problem with a Gaussian mixture model. Finally, a novel metric is developed to measure NILM disaggregation performance. The metric shows to be robust under a set of fundamental test cases

Energy Disaggregation using Two-Stage Fusion of Binary Device Detectors

A data-driven methodology to improve the energy disaggregation accuracy during Non-Intrusive Load Monitoring is proposed. In detail, the method is using a two-stage classification scheme, with the first stage consisting of classification models processing the aggregated signal in parallel and each of them producing a binary device detection score, and the second stage consisting of fusion regression models for estimating the power consumption for each of the electrical appliances. The accuracy of the proposed approach was tested on three datasets (ECO, REDD and iAWE), which are available online, using four different classifiers. The presented approach improves the estimation accuracy by up to 4.1% with respect to a basic energy disaggregation architecture, while the improvement on device level was up to 10.1%. Analysis on device level showed significant improvement of power consumption estimation accuracy especially for continuous and non-linear appliances across all evaluated datasets

Identification of TV Channel Watching from Smart Meter Data Using Energy Disaggregation

Smart meters are used to measure the energy consumption of households. Specifically, within the energy consumption task, a smart meter must be used for load forecasting, the reduction in consumer bills as well as the reduction in grid distortions. Smart meters can be used to disaggregate the energy consumption at the device level. In this paper, we investigated the potential of identifying the multimedia content played by a TV or monitor device using the central house’s smart meter measuring the aggregated energy consumption from all working appliances of the household. The proposed architecture was based on the elastic matching of aggregated energy signal frames with 20 reference TV channel signals. Different elastic matching algorithms, which use symmetric distance measures, were used with the best achieved video content identification accuracy of 93.6% using the MVM algorithm

Non-parametric modeling in non-intrusive load monitoring

Non-intrusive Load Monitoring (NILM) is an approach to the increasingly important task of residential energy analytics. Transparency of energy resources and consumption habits presents opportunities and benefits at all ends of the energy supply-chain, including the end-user. At present, there is no feasible infrastructure available to monitor individual appliances at a large scale. The goal of NILM is to provide appliance monitoring using only the available aggregate data, side-stepping the need for expensive and intrusive monitoring equipment. The present work showcases two self-contained, fully unsupervised NILM solutions: the first featuring non-parametric mixture models, and the second featuring non-parametric factorial Hidden Markov Models with explicit duration distributions. The present implementation makes use of traditional and novel constraints during inference, showing marked improvement in disaggregation accuracy with very little effect on computational cost, relative to the motivating work. To constitute a complete unsupervised solution, labels are applied to the inferred components using a Res-Net-based deep learning architecture. Although this preliminary approach to labelling proves less than satisfactory, it is well-founded and several opportunities for improvement are discussed. Both methods, along with the labelling network, make use of block-filtered data: a steady-state representation that removes transient behaviour and signal noise. A novel filter to achieve this steady-state representation that is both fast and reliable is developed and discussed at length. Finally, an approach to monitor the aggregate for novel events during deployment is developed under the framework of Bayesian surprise. The same non-parametric modelling can be leveraged to examine how the predictive and transitional distributions change given new windows of observations. This framework is also shown to have potential elsewhere, such as in regularizing models against over-fitting, which is an important problem in existing supervised NILM

Energy Data Analytics for Smart Meter Data

The principal advantage of smart electricity meters is their ability to transfer digitized electricity consumption data to remote processing systems. The data collected by these devices make the realization of many novel use cases possible, providing benefits to electricity providers and customers alike. This book includes 14 research articles that explore and exploit the information content of smart meter data, and provides insights into the realization of new digital solutions and services that support the transition towards a sustainable energy system. This volume has been edited by Andreas Reinhardt, head of the Energy Informatics research group at Technische Universität Clausthal, Germany, and Lucas Pereira, research fellow at Técnico Lisboa, Portugal

Otimização aplicada ao monitoramento não intrusivo de cargas elétricas residenciais

Orientador: Marcos Julio Rider FloresDissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Faculdade de Engenharia Elétrica e de ComputaçãoResumo: Este trabalho apresenta um método de monitoramento não intrusivo (Non-Intrusive Load Monitoring - NILM) baseado em programação linear inteira mista (Mixed-Integer Linear Programming - MILP). NILM são métodos para desagregar leituras de medidores de energia em informações a respeito dos aparelhos eletrodomésticos em operação. Tais informações, como consumo e estado de operação, são valiosas para promover a eficiência energética e manutenção preventiva. A técnica NILM proposta neste trabalho expande o modelo clássico fundamentado em otimização combinatória (Combinatorial Optimization - CO). A nova formulação lida com o problema de ambiguidade de cargas similares, presente no modelo clássico. Restrições lineares são utilizadas para representar eficientemente as assinaturas de carga. Além disso, uma estratégia baseada em janelas temporais é proposta para melhorar o desempenho computacional. A desagregação de cargas pode ser feita utilizando apenas medidas de potência ativa em uma baixa taxa de amostragem, disponível em medidores inteligentes comerciais. A técnica também permite a utilização de outros tipos de medidas, se disponíveis, como a potência reativa. O desempenho do algoritmo é validado utilizando dois casos de teste a partir da base de dados pública AMPds. A taxa de amostragem do caso de teste é de uma amostra por minuto. Os resultados demonstram a habilidade do método proposto para identificar e desagregar com precisão as assinaturas de energia individuais de forma computacionalmente eficienteAbstract: This work presents a non-intrusive load monitoring (NILM) method based on mixed-integer linear programming (MILP). NILM are methods for disaggregating measurements from energy meters into information regarding operating appliances. Such information, such as the power consumption and operating state, are valuable for promoting energy savings and predictive maintenance. The proposed technique expands the classical model based on combinatorial optimization (CO). The new formulation handles the problem of ambiguity of similar loads, present in the classical model. Linear constraints are used to efficiently represent load signatures. Additionally, a window-based strategy is proposed to enhance the computational performance of the proposed NILM algorithm. The disaggregation can be made using only active power measurements at a low sampling rate, which is already available in commercial smart meters. Other features can be added to the model, if available, such as the reactive power. The performance of the algorithm is evaluated using two test cases from the public dataset AMPds. The sampling rate from the test case is of one sample per minute. Results demonstrate the ability of the proposed method to accurately identify and disaggregate individual energy signatures in a computationally efficient wayMestradoEnergia ElétricaMestre em Engenharia Elétric

Smart Metering System: Developing New Designs to Improve Privacy and Functionality

This PhD project aims to develop a novel smart metering system that plays a dual role: Fulfil basic functions (metering, billing, management of demand for energy in grids) and protect households from privacy intrusions whilst enabling them a degree of freedom. The first two chapters of the thesis will introduce the research background and a detailed literature review on state-of-the-art works for protecting smart meter data. Chapter 3 discusses theory foundations for smart meter data analytics, including machine learning, deep learning, and information theory foundations. The rest of the thesis is split into two parts, ‘Privacy’ and ‘Functionality’, respectively. In the ‘Privacy’ part, the overall smart metering system, as well as privacy configurations, are presented. A threat/adversary model is developed at first. Then a multi-channel smart metering system is designed to reduce the privacy risks of the adversary. Each channel of the system is responsible for one functionality by transmitting different granular smart meter data. In addition, the privacy boundary of the smart meter data in the proposed system is also discovered by introducing a data mining algorithm. By employing the algorithm, a three-level privacy boundary is concluded. Furthermore, a differentially private federated learning-based value-added service platform is designed to provide flexible privacy guarantees to consumers and balance the trade-off between privacy loss and service accuracy. In the ‘Functionality’ part, three feeder-level functionalities: load forecasting, solar energy separation, and energy disaggregation are evaluated. These functionalities will increase thepredictability, visibility, and controllability of the distributed network without utilizing household smart meter data. Finally, the thesis will conclude and summarize the overall system and highlight the contributions and novelties of this project

Demand Response in Smart Grids

The Special Issue “Demand Response in Smart Grids” includes 11 papers on a variety of topics. The success of this Special Issue demonstrates the relevance of demand response programs and events in the operation of power and energy systems at both the distribution level and at the wide power system level. This reprint addresses the design, implementation, and operation of demand response programs, with focus on methods and techniques to achieve an optimized operation as well as on the electricity consumer