Low Cost Disaggregation of Smart Meter Sensor Data

Abstract

This paper proposes a novel load disaggregation algorithm, based on non-intrusive appliance monitoring that provides accurate results without the need of the reactive power component. The proposed technique requires the minimum possible number of sensor meters within the smart meter hardware and reduces the data traffic of the advanced metering infrastructure network, since it processes the only low-frequency smart meter data of the active power component of a residential unit. We propose a three-stage process for energy usage analysis, based on pulse extraction, pulse clustering and classification, and pulse to appliance association. The smart meter data are decomposed into a discrete set of pulses, and each pulse is associated with the operation of the appliances. The outcome of the algorithm is a pulse to appliance association that creates a daily load disaggregation map for the residential unit. In addition, this paper presents an overview and comparison of existing solutions that will help the reader obtain a good overview of the landscape of load disaggregation from smart meter sensor readings.