Industrial users load pattern extraction method based on multidimensional electrical consumption feature construction

The rapid development of renewable energy generation aggravates the imbalance between supply and demand in power grid, and exploring the potential of demand side resource can effectively improve such problems. Industrial users (IU) is an important demand response resource of power grid, and mining the load patterns of IU is the basis of studying the demand response ability of IU, which plays an important role in the safe operation and lean management of power grid. Lately, the popularity of advanced metering infrastructures provides data support for studying the load patterns of IU. However, the high dimensionality and the complex non-linear relationship of IU’s load data bring difficulties to the task of clustering. To solve the above problems, this paper proposes a load pattern extraction method based on multidimensional electrical consumption feature construction. Firstly, industrial load characteristic set of IU is created with five load characteristic indexes weighted by improved entropy weight method. In addition, convolutional autoencoder is established to extract the temporal feature of industrial load data which is combined with industrial load characteristic set to build a multidimensional feature set (MFS) for IU and finish multidimensional electrical consumption feature construction (MECFC). Then, MFS is used as the input of Self-Organization Map network to select the initial clustering centers of K-means algorithm, overcoming the problem of local optimal solution, and complete the IU daily load clustering. The experiment shows that the algorithm based on MECFC solves the local optimal problem and have better performance in stability and clustering effect than traditional methods

A Machine Learning-Based Framework for Clustering Residential Electricity Load Profiles to Enhance Demand Response Programs

Load shapes derived from smart meter data are frequently employed to analyze daily energy consumption patterns, particularly in the context of applications like Demand Response (DR). Nevertheless, one of the most important challenges to this endeavor lies in identifying the most suitable consumer clusters with similar consumption behaviors. In this paper, we present a novel machine learning based framework in order to achieve optimal load profiling through a real case study, utilizing data from almost 5000 households in London. Four widely used clustering algorithms are applied specifically K-means, K-medoids, Hierarchical Agglomerative Clustering and Density-based Spatial Clustering. An empirical analysis as well as multiple evaluation metrics are leveraged to assess those algorithms. Following that, we redefine the problem as a probabilistic classification one, with the classifier emulating the behavior of a clustering algorithm,leveraging Explainable AI (xAI) to enhance the interpretability of our solution. According to the clustering algorithm analysis the optimal number of clusters for this case is seven. Despite that, our methodology shows that two of the clusters, almost 10\% of the dataset, exhibit significant internal dissimilarity and thus it splits them even further to create nine clusters in total. The scalability and versatility of our solution makes it an ideal choice for power utility companies aiming to segment their users for creating more targeted Demand Response programs.Comment: 29 pages, 19 figure

Targeted demand response for flexible energy communities using clustering techniques

The present study proposes clustering techniques for designing demand response (DR) programs for commercial and residential prosumers. The goal is to alter the consumption behavior of the prosumers within a distributed energy community in Italy. This aggregation aims to: a) minimize the reverse power flow at the primary substation, occuring when generation from solar panels in the local grid exceeds consumption, and b) shift the system wide peak demand, that typically occurs during late afternoon. Regarding the clustering stage, we consider daily prosumer load profiles and divide them across the extracted clusters. Three popular machine learning algorithms are employed, namely k-means, k-medoids and agglomerative clustering. We evaluate the methods using multiple metrics including a novel metric proposed within this study, namely peak performance score (PPS). The k-means algorithm with dynamic time warping distance considering 14 clusters exhibits the highest performance with a PPS of 0.689. Subsequently, we analyze each extracted cluster with respect to load shape, entropy, and load types. These characteristics are used to distinguish the clusters that have the potential to serve the optimization objectives by matching them to proper DR schemes including time of use, critical peak pricing, and real-time pricing. Our results confirm the effectiveness of the proposed clustering algorithm in generating meaningful flexibility clusters, while the derived DR pricing policy encourages consumption during off-peak hours. The developed methodology is robust to the low availability and quality of training datasets and can be used by aggregator companies for segmenting energy communities and developing personalized DR policies

Demand response program for smart grid through real time pricing and home energy management system

Aim of demand response (DR) programs are to change the usage pattern of electricity in such a way that, beneficial to the consumers as well as to the distributors by applying some methods or technology. This way additional cost to erect new energy sources can be postponed in power grid. Best method to implement demand response (DR) program is by influencing consumer through the implementation of real time pricing scheme. To harness the benefit of DR, automated home energy management system is essential. This paper presents a comprehensive demand response system with real time pricing. The real time price is determined after considering price elasticity of various classes of consumers and their load profiles. A real time clustering algorithm suitable for big data of smart grid is devised for the segmentation of consumers. This paper is novel in its design for real time pricing and modelling and automatic scheduling of appliances for home energy management. Simulation results showed that this new real time pricing method is suitable for DR programs to reduce the peak load of the system as well as reducing the energy expenditure of houses, while ensuring profit for the retailer

Research on the double-layer clustering method of residential energy use characteristics under the background of energy system energy savings and carbon reduction

Accurate differentiation of energy consumption information of residential users is of great significance for load planning, scheduling, operation and management of power system, and is the basic premise for realizing intelligent perception of energy system and energy saving and carbon reduction. Considering that the conventional single-layer clustering method has limited clustering stability and clustering effect, this paper takes the key family feature factors as the modified feature quantity of quadratic clustering, and proposes a study of user energy characteristics based on double-layer clustering and modification. Firstly, the user’s energy consumption data is collected and pre-processed, and the user’s energy consumption curve is clustered and analyzed by using the integrated clustering algorithm based on voting and the advantages of each member algorithm. Then, the key family characteristic factors are obtained, and the results of one-layer clustering and key family characteristic factors are combined to carry out two-layer clustering of the same category of users in the form of questionnaire survey. Finally, the nonlinear mapping capability of Support Vector Machine (SVM) is used to reverse correct the results of the one-layer clustering. The actual algorithm data of the residents’ demand response experiment in a southeastern province are compared. The results show that compared with the single-layer clustering algorithm, the proposed method can accurately distinguish the energy consumption characteristics and adjustable potential of different users, and correct the wrong clustering results in the single-layer clustering. The clustering stability and clustering effect have been effectively improved.The example results show that the clustering results modified by SVM can better mine and distinguish user energy characteristics, and can be used to solve the problem of the current demand response clustering algorithm not being able to comprehensively and objectively describe the participation willingness and response-ability of residential users in the implementation process. It can also provide a basis for peak shaving and power grid frequency regulation

Submodular Load Clustering with Robust Principal Component Analysis

Traditional load analysis is facing challenges with the new electricity usage patterns due to demand response as well as increasing deployment of distributed generations, including photovoltaics (PV), electric vehicles (EV), and energy storage systems (ESS). At the transmission system, despite of irregular load behaviors at different areas, highly aggregated load shapes still share similar characteristics. Load clustering is to discover such intrinsic patterns and provide useful information to other load applications, such as load forecasting and load modeling. This paper proposes an efficient submodular load clustering method for transmission-level load areas. Robust principal component analysis (R-PCA) firstly decomposes the annual load profiles into low-rank components and sparse components to extract key features. A novel submodular cluster center selection technique is then applied to determine the optimal cluster centers through constructed similarity graph. Following the selection results, load areas are efficiently assigned to different clusters for further load analysis and applications. Numerical results obtained from PJM load demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.Comment: Accepted by 2019 IEEE PES General Meeting, Atlanta, G

Clustering appliance operation modes with unsupervised deep learning techniques

In smart grids, consumers can be involved in demand response programs to reduce the total power consumption of their households during the peak hours of the day. Unfortunately, nowadays, utility companies are facing important challenges in the implementation of demand response programs because of their negative impact on the comfort of end-users. In this paper, we cluster the different operation modes of household appliances based on the analysis of their power signatures. For this purpose, we implement an autoencoder neural network to create a better data representation of the power signatures. Then, we cluster the different operational programs by using a K-means algorithm fitted to the new data representation. To test our methodology, we study the operation modes of some washing machines and dishwashers whose power signatures were derived from both submeters and non-intrusive load monitoring techniques. Our clustering analysis reveals the existence of multiple working programs showing well-defined features in terms of both average energy consumption and duration. Our results can then be used to improve demand response programs by reducing their impact on the comfort of end users. Furthermore, end users can rely on our framework to favor lighter operation modes and reduce their overall energy consumption