Demand-Side Management for Improvement of the Power Quality in Smart Homes Using Non-Intrusive Identification of Appliance Usage Patterns with the True Power Factor

Abstract

The proliferation of low-power consumer electronic appliances (LPCEAs) is on the rise in smart homes in order to save energy. On the flip side, the current harmonics induced due to these LPCEAs pollute low-voltage distribution systems’ (LVDSs’) supplies, leading to a poor power factor (PF). Further, the energy meters in an LVDS do not measure both the total harmonic distortion (THD) of the current and the PF, resulting in inaccurate billing for energy consumption. In addition, this impacts the useful lifetime of LPCEAs. A PF that takes the harmonic distortion into account is called the true power factor (TPF). It is imperative to measure it accurately. This article measures the TPF using a four-term minimal sidelobe cosine-windowed enhanced dual-spectrum line interpolated Fast Fourier Transform (FFT). The proposed method was used to measure the TPF with a National Instruments cRIO-9082 real-time (RT) system, and four different LPCEAs in a smart home were considered. The RT results exhibited that the TPF uniquely identified each usage pattern of the LPCEAs and could use them to improve the TPF by suggesting an alternative usage pattern to the consumer. A positive response behavior on the part of the consumer that is in their interest can improve the power quality in a demand-side management application.