Challenges for real-world applications of nonintrusive load monitoring and opportunities for machine learning approaches

Abstract

The rapid increase of power consumption calls for efficient and effective energy usage and conservation strategies in buildings. One of the requirements of achieving such a goal is load monitoring of residential appliances. Among the available load monitoring frameworks, nonintrusive load monitoring (NILM) which is used to estimate the appliance-level power usage from the aggregated signals from smart meters, has the potential to be widely deployed. This paper presents an up-to-date review of NILM methods and the challenges existing in each step of NILM. Then this paper reviews two state-of-the-art machine learning based NILM methods including Hidden Markov Model and Deep Learning techniques. Finally, this paper discusses areas for future research and development of NILM in real-world applications, where machine learning approaches can play a more significant and even decisive role.