9th IFAC symposium on Control of Power and Energy Systems

Indian
9th Institute of Technology
IFAC
9th IFAC symposium
December symposium
9-11, 2015.
on
on Control
Control
Delhi,
of Power and
Indiaof Power and Energy
AvailableEnergy Systems
online Systems
at www.sciencedirect.com
Indian Institute
Indian Institute of Technology
of Technology
December 9-11, 2015. Delhi, India
December 9-11, 2015. Delhi, India
ScienceDirect
IFAC-PapersOnLine 48-30 (2015) 415–420
Overview of non-intrusive load monitoring and identification techniques
Overview
Overview of
of non-intrusive
non-intrusive load
load monitoring
monitoring and
and identification
identification techniques
techniques
E.J. Aladesanmi* KA Folly*.
E.J. Aladesanmi*
E.J. Aladesanmi* KA
KA Folly*.
Folly*.


* Electrical Engineering Department, University of Cape Town,
Private Bag **Rondebosch
Electrical 7701, (e-mails:
Engineering ereolaa@yahoo.co.uk;
Electrical Engineering Department, University
Department, University of Komla.Folly@uct.ac.za)
of Cape
Cape Town,
Town,
Private Bag Rondebosch 7701, (e-mails: ereolaa@yahoo.co.uk; Komla.Folly@uct.ac.za)
Private Bag Rondebosch 7701, (e-mails: ereolaa@yahoo.co.uk; Komla.Folly@uct.ac.za)
Abstract: Load monitoring and identification is a method of determining electrical energy consumption
and operation
Abstract:
Abstract: Load
Load condition of individual
monitoring
monitoring and appliances
and identification
identification is based
is aa method
methodon theof analysis of composite
of determining
determining electrical load measured
electrical energy
energy from
consumption
consumption
the
and main power
operation meter
condition in
of a building.
individual They
appliances can supply
based on information
the analysis such
of as
composite
and operation condition of individual appliances based on the analysis of composite load measured from type of
load load, electricity
measured from
consumption
the
the main
main power
powerdetail and in
meter
meter theaarunning
in building.
building. conditions
They
They cancanofsupply
the appliances
supply information
information to both
suchthe
such as consumer
as type
type of and the
of load,
load, utility.
electricity
electricity
The information
consumption
consumption canand
detail
detail andbetheused
the to formulate
running
running conditions
conditions load of plan
of strategies to
the appliances
the appliances forboth
to optimal
both energy utilization.
the consumer
the consumer and the
and Load
the utility.
utility.
monitoring
The techniques
information can be canused generally
to be
formulate grouped
load into
plan intrusive
strategies and
for non-intrusive
optimal
The information can be used to formulate load plan strategies for optimal energy utilization. Load energy load monitoring.
utilization. Load
Intrusive load
monitoring
monitoring monitoring
techniques
techniques canprovides
can generally
generally accurate
be results and
be grouped
grouped intowould
into allowand
intrusive
intrusive andeach individual appliance's
non-intrusive
non-intrusive load energy
load monitoring.
monitoring.
consumption
Intrusive load to be communicated
monitoring provides to a
accuratecentral
resultshub.and However,
would this
allow method
each
Intrusive load monitoring provides accurate results and would allow each individual appliance's energy is costly
individual because
appliance's of the
energy
consumption to be communicated to a central hub. However, this method is costly because ofnon-
number of
consumption equipment
to be to be
communicated manufactured
to a and
central installed.
hub. This
However, has
thisprompted
method the
is introduction
costly because of of the
the
intrusive
number load
of monitoring
equipment to system.
be Non-intrusive
manufactured and load monitoring
installed. This is
has cost effective
prompted
number of equipment to be manufactured and installed. This has prompted the introduction of non- theand convenient
introduction of means
non-
of load monitoring
intrusive
intrusive load since system.
load monitoring
monitoring it requires
system. lower equipment
Non-intrusive
Non-intrusive load due to fewer
load monitoring
monitoring is components
is cost
cost effective
effective andto install
and and smaller
convenient
convenient means
means
space
of
of loadrequirements.
load monitoring
monitoring sinceThis it
since itpaper is concerned
requires
requires lower
lower equipment with thedue
equipment overview
due to fewerofcomponents
to fewer different load
components to identification
to install
install and
and smallerand
smaller
monitoring
space
space techniquesThis
requirements.
requirements. for energy
This paper management
paper is concerned focusing
is concerned with the
with theonoverview
non-intrusive
overview load monitoring.
of different
of different load identification
load identification andand
monitoring
monitoring techniques
techniques for
for energy
energy management
management focusing
focusing on non-intrusive
on identification,
non-intrusive load
load monitoring.
monitoring.
© 2015, IFAC
Keywords: E (International
nergy management, Federation
intrusive ofload
Automatic
monitoring, Control)
load Hosting by Elsevier Ltd. All
non-intrusive loadrights reserved.
monitoring.
Keywords: E nergy management, intrusive load monitoring, load identification, non-intrusive
Keywords: Energy management, intrusive load monitoring, load identification, non-intrusive load monitoring. load monitoring.

 2012). In this paper, different load identification and
1. INTRODUCTION
monitoring
2012). In techniques
2012). In this paper,fordifferent
this paper, energy management
different load are reviewed
load identification
identification and
and
1.
1. INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION
Intrusive load monitoring technique monitor appliances based and analysedtechniques
monitoring
monitoring focusing on
techniques fornon-intrusive
for energy load monitoring.
energy management
management are
are reviewed
reviewed
on supervisory
Intrusive load
Intrusive monitoringand
control
load monitoring data acquisition
technique
technique (SCADA).
monitor appliances
monitor appliances based
basedTo and analysed
and analysed focusing
focusing on
on non-intrusive
non-intrusive load
load monitoring.
monitoring.
adequately
on monitor appliances, sensors
on supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA). To
supervisory control and data are
acquisition installed
(SCADA). at each
To 2. OVERVIEW OF LOAD MONITORING TECHNIQUES
appliance
adequatelytomonitor
adequately be monitored,
monitor appliances,
appliances, and sensors
once theare
sensors areappliance
installedrecorder
installed at
at each
each 2.
2. OVERVIEW
OVERVIEW OF OF LOAD
LOAD MONITORING
MONITORING TECHNIQUES
TECHNIQUES
receives
appliancea to
appliance tosensor
be message, and
be monitored,
monitored, it immediately
and once
once the records the
the appliance
appliance load
recorder
recorder
data and
receives delivers them to the data centre
receives a sensor message, it immediately records the load
a sensor message, it immediately for further
records analyses.
the load
2.1 Intrusive Load Monitoring (ILM)
The
data intrusive
data and
and delivers
delivers load
themmonitoring
them to
to the data system
the data centre
centre for is further
for comprehensive,
further analyses.
analyses. 2.1 Intrusive
2.1 Intrusive LoadLoad Monitoring
Monitoring (ILM) (ILM)
systematic, andload convenient method The Intrusive load monitoring system is a common metering
The
The intrusive
intrusive load monitoring
monitoring systemof is
system ismonitoring
comprehensive,
comprehensive, load.
system that measures the energysystem
consumption of an appliance
However,
systematic, the cost of installation and maintenance of The
The Intrusive load
load monitoring is
is aa common metering
systematic, and convenient method of monitoring load.
and convenient method of monitoring load. by
Intrusive
connecting
system that
monitoring
power
measures the meters
energy
system
to each
consumption
common
appliance
of an
metering
in the
appliance
measuring
However, devices
However, the costsuch
the cost of asinstallation
of meters or sensors
installation may be a too
and maintenance
and maintenance of
of system that measures the energy consumption of an appliance
expensive. In addition, household.
by Therefore, it requires
by connecting power meters to each appliance in
connecting power meters entering
to each the house,
appliance thus
in the
measuring
measuring devices
devices such
such as as the
meters
meters intrusive
or
or sensors
sensorsloadmay
maymonitoring
be
be aa tootoo system is referred to asit
the
technique household. Therefore, itintrusive. It provides
requires entering
entering theaccurate
house, thusresults,
thus the
expensive. is In
expensive. Intoo addition,
complicated
addition, the tointrusive
the implementload
intrusive loadin an ordinary
monitoring
monitoring household.
however,
Therefore,
imposing
requires the house, the
household
technique without a two-way communication device such as system isis referred
referred to high costs and
as intrusive.
intrusive. a complex
It provides
provides installation
accurate results,
technique is too complicated to implement in an ordinary
is too complicated to implement in an ordinary system
which usually
to
requires
as
wiring
It accurate results,
smart meter.
household Also, customer acceptance
household without a two-way communication device such
without a two-way communication is another
device issue
suchthatas
as
however,
however, imposing
imposing high
high costsand
costs anddata
and storage units
aa complex
complex for the
installation
installation
could
smart hinder
meter. the
Also, effective
customer implementation
acceptance is anotherof feedback
issue that house
which households
usually requires concerned.
wiring andIntrusive
which usually requires wiring and data storage units for
data load
storage monitoring
units for the
the
smart meter. Also, customer acceptance is another issue that techniques can be direct or indirect monitoring techniques
programs,
could hindersincethesome customers
effective will not allow of
implementation the feedback
intrusion house households concerned. Intrusive
house households concerned. Intrusive load monitoring load monitoring
could hinder the effective implementation of feedback (Yoshimoto,
in their
programs, privacy
since (Du
some customers
et al., 2010). Future
programs, since some customers will not allow the intrusion
will not allowload-monitoring
the intrusion
techniques
techniques can can2000),
be
be direct (Zeifman,
direct or and monitoring
or indirect
indirect Roth, 2011).
monitoring Direct
techniques
techniques
systems monitoring
(Yoshimoto, techniques which are also
(Yoshimoto, 2000), (Zeifman, and Roth, 2011). Direct
2000), (Zeifman, and known
Roth, as
2011). physical
in
in their should
their privacybe(Du
privacy based
(Du et on
et al.,the
al., strategies
2010).
2010). Future
Future forload-monitoring
minimizing the
load-monitoring
intrusive signatures measure
Direct
number
systems of
systems monitoring
should
should be baseddevices
be based on the and
on the cost effectiveness
strategies
strategies for
for minimizing
minimizing of the
the
monitoring
monitoring techniques
techniques whichtheare
which areelectrical
also
also known characteristics
known as
as physical of
physical
monitoring systems. This has led to the introduction of each appliance's
intrusive signatures power demand
measure the (Marceau,
the electrical and
electrical Zmeureanu,
characteristics of
number
number of monitoring devices and cost effectiveness of
of monitoring devices and cost effectiveness ofnon-
the
the intrusive
each
signatures
appliance's power
measure
demand (Marceau,
characteristics
and Zmeureanu,
Zmeureanu,
of
intrusive
monitoring load monitoring
systems. This system
has led (NILM)
to the
monitoring systems. This has led to the introduction of non- (Zoha
introductionet al.,of2012),
non- 2000),appliance's
each (Breed, and power Delport,
demand 2001) . The physical
(Marceau, and intrusive
(Du et al.,
intrusive
intrusive load2010),
load (Ehrhardt-Martinez,
monitoring
monitoring system
system (NILM)
(NILM) et al, 2010).
(Zoha
(Zoha et Non-
al., 2012),
et al., 2012), 2000),
2000), (Breed,
signatures can beand
(Breed, and Delport,
Delport,by2001)
generated a small
2001) .. The
The physical
device attached
physical intrusive
to the
intrusive
intrusive
(Du load monitoring techniques
(Du et al., 2010), (Ehrhardt-Martinez, et al, 2010). Non-
et al., 2010), (Ehrhardt-Martinez, make
et use
al, of
2010). a single
Non- power
signaturescordcan of
be an appliance
generated by a for
small measuring
signatures can be generated by a small device attached todevice the
attached energy
to the
the
recording
intrusive
intrusive load meter
load that is installed
monitoring
monitoring techniques
techniques at make
the electrical
make use
use ofof aa service
single
single consumption
power cord by
of the
an appliances.
appliance Whenever
for
power cord of an appliance for measuring the energy measuring the appliance
the energy is
entrance
recording
recording meterfrom that
meter where
that is the whole
is installed
installed at thehousehold
at the electrical energy
electrical service
service switched
consumption on, the
by device
the sends
appliances. signal
consumption by the appliances. Whenever the appliance is
Whenever to thethedata collector
appliance is
consumption
entrance
entrance from fromand where time of
where the usewhole
the wholeof each appliance
household
household energy
energyare indicating
switched
switched on,on,the the
operating
the device state
device sendsofsignal
sends the appliances.
signal to
to the dataThe
the data power
collector
collector
monitored.
consumption Besides, NILM
consumption and time of use of each appliance are
and time of use isof low
each cost (in
appliance terms
are drawn by the
indicating
indicating the appliance
the operating can
operating statebeof
state ofcalculated
the
the appliances.by measuring
appliances. The
The power the
power
implementation
monitored.
monitored. and maintenance),
Besides,
Besides, NILM
NILM is is itlowdoescost
low not require
cost (in
(in terms
termsan electromagnetic
drawn field
appliance generated
can be by
drawn by the appliance can be calculated by measuring the
by the calculated the flow
by of
measuring current
the
intrusion
implementationinto the customer’s
implementation and maintenance), it does not require an
and maintenance), premisesit does whennot require
monitoring an through the wire.
electromagnetic
electromagnetic field This
field technique
generated
generated by
by the theprovides
flow
flow of of accurate
current
current
energy consumption
intrusion
intrusion into
into the of different
the customer’s
customer’s appliances
premises
premises when(Zoha
when et al.,
monitoring
monitoring measurement,
through
through the the but it is not
wire.
wire. Thiscosttechnique
This effective (Zeifman,
technique provides and
provides Roth,
accurate
accurate
energy
energy consumption
consumption of of different
different appliances
appliances (Zoha (Zoha et et al.,
al., measurement,
measurement, but it is not cost effective (Zeifman, and Roth,
but it is not cost effective (Zeifman, and Roth,
Copyright 2015 IFAC
2405-8963 © 2015, IFAC (International Federation of Automatic Control)415Hosting by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Peer review©under
Copyright 2015 responsibility
IFAC of International Federation of Automatic
415 Control.
Copyright © 2015 IFAC
10.1016/j.ifacol.2015.12.414 415
IFAC CPES 2015
416
December 9-11, 2015. Delhi, India E.J. Aladesanmi et al. / IFAC-PapersOnLine 48-30 (2015) 415–420
2011). On the other hand, indirect intrusive load monitoring
(IILM) techniques measure non-electrical characteristics,
from which each appliance's power demand is inferred. There
are three forms of indirect intrusive load monitoring
technique: appliance tagging, ambient sensors and
conditional demand analysis. Appliance tagging is the
modification of smart appliance such that a tag displays a
unique signal when the appliance turns on or off.
2.2 Non- intrusive Load Monitoring (NILM)
Non-intrusive load monitoring is a convenient means of
determining the energy consumption and the state of
operation of individual appliances based on analysis of the
aggregate load measured by the main power meter in a
building. NILM is a process of analysing changes in the
voltage and current going into a building and deducing what
appliances are used in the building as well as their individual
energy consumption. It is called non-intrusive because it
does not require intruding into the house or consumer
premises when measuring the power consumption of different
appliances. Smart meters with NILM technology are used by
utility companies to survey the specific uses of electric power
in different homes. NILM is considered a low cost alternative
to intrusive monitoring techniques. The idea of analysing the
power flow to determine household appliances and report on
their operating condition started when George W. Hart was
collecting and analysing load data as part of a residential
photo-voltaic system studied (Ehrhardt-Martinez, 2010). The
basic monitoring principle is to recognize a step change in
active and reactive power in the total load produced by
altering the operating state of the different customer’s
appliances. Recently, Électricité de France (EDF) developed
a new approach which consists of Hidden Markov Model
(HMM) in an attempt to recognize the logical and
chronological switch-on and off of different appliances. An
HMM consists of states and transitions between appliances
switched on and off (Phial, 1998). Monitoring of individual
utility customers for the purpose of energy audit is an
important application of NILM system. A NILM can be
installed temporarily at the customer’s request in order to
analyse the characteristic of the appliances which can be used
in suggesting ways of reducing consumption and costs. A
second audit is often valuable to confirm the savings
resulting from conservation measures. Another application of
NILM is a power monitoring for appliance failure analysis or
security purposes. Faulty appliances can be detected by their
unusual power consumption or duty cycles. For instance,
irregularity in power consumption of refrigerator which was
ON almost all of the time can easily be detected and replaced.
In terms of security, a vacation home which is unoccupied for
a long period of time can be monitored at a single point. The
monitor could be programmed to automatically generate and
report appliances usage above or below the specified
thresholds and send notification to the owner automatically
via phone message. Furthermore, application of NILM
involves the verification of demand side management control.
Many electric utilities install appliance controller on
deferrable load throughout their customer base to shed them
during the period of peak power usage. NILM can verify that
416
the system is in operation and has not been overcome by
radio or customer inference. Apart from the aforementioned
applications, NILM system applications include load
forecasting and rate forecasting (Ehrhardt-Martinez, 2010).
The main idea behind the NILM system is to determine the
energy consumption of individual appliances in a building
based on the analysis of the aggregated data measured from a
single meter outside the building (Zoha et al., 2012). The
total aggregated measurement of the household energy
consumption of the individual appliance from the main meter
can be estimated according to equation (1) (Zoha et al.,
2012), (Wang and Zheng, 2012):
n
pt   i 1
pi (t )  et (1)
where;
pt is the aggregated household energy consumption, pi(t) is
the individual appliance energy consumption of at a given
period of time and et is the measurement errors and line loss.
Electrical appliances display a specific or unique
characteristic during the normal working cycle. This
characteristic is known as appliances signatures, which may
contain information about values of electrical parameters
during steady-state or transient states. This information
enables proper monitoring and identification of a specific
appliance from the aggregated household energy
consumption measurement. The power signal from active
appliances aggregate on the main meter is shown in Figure 1.
Domestic appliances can be classified into the following
categories based on the operational state or working principal
of the appliances: two-state appliances, multi-state
appliances; continuously-varying power appliances;
permanent consumer appliances (Zoha et al., 2012),
(Zeifman, and Roth, 2011), (Baranski, and Voss, 2003),
(Norford, and Leeb, 1996), single measurement (Zeifman,
and Roth, 2011).
Fig.1: Power vs time plot of the total appliance data from
Two-state appliances are those appliances that have only two
states of operations either ON or OFF at a given point in
time. Examples of such appliances are table lamp, light bulb,
toaster and water pump. Multi-state appliances are the
appliances that have more than two operating states. For
instance, the appliances with on, off and standby modes are
multi-state appliances. They are also known as a Finite State
Machine (FSM). Examples of appliances include washing
machine, stove burner and dishwasher. Continuously-varying
power appliances are the appliances that do not consume a
 IFAC CPES 2015
December 9-11, 2015. Delhi, India E.J. Aladesanmi et al. / IFAC-PapersOnLine 48-30 (2015) 415–420 417
constant power. The monitoring and identification of such
appliances are usually the most difficult one since they
cannot be described by well-defined states. Examples include
light dimmers and power tools. Permanent consumer
appliances are the appliances that remain permanently ON
with nearly constant active and reactive power consumption.
Examples of this category of appliances include smoke
detectors and telephone set. The Different appliances types
based on their energy consumption pattern are shown in
Figure 2.
Fig. 2. Different Appliances Types Based on their Energy
Consumption Pattern (Zoha, 2012)
Data acquisition stage is a stage of obtaining aggregated load
measurements from the household at a given time interval so
that distinctive load patterns can be identified. During this
stage, voltage and current measurements are obtained and
processed to produce power metrics (real and reactive
power). The steady-state or transient changes in the pre-
processed signals, corresponding to the operation of
individual appliances are detected (Barges, et al., 2010).
Power meters are used to collect and measure the total
household load based on the time interval specified by the
researcher. When an appliance switched ON and OFF, power
samples changed, and a new steady power level is
established. This is characterized by a change in real and
reactive power. Appliance identification can be made by
using an algorithm and comparing the energy consumption of
each appliance with known features of a typical appliance in
the data (Barges, et al., 2010).
3. LOAD IDENTIFICATION SYSTEMS
Vital information that enables effective energy management
and consumption in the residential sector is provided through
accurate and reliable domestic appliance identification and
monitoring (Du et al., 2010). However, apart from the lack of
effective coordination system between the loads and the
building management system, inefficient and feeble
intelligent load identification and monitoring techniques has
made it difficult to identify and recognize the majority of the
electrical appliances that are connected to residential
buildings (Du et al., 2010). By identifying different types of
loads and their power consumption from the current and
voltage signatures, one can provide useful information for
load management system and therefore improve the system
efficiency. Electrical appliances often present unique
characteristic in the electrical signals (voltage, current and
power) (Zoha et al., 2012). Such characteristics provide a
viable means of identifying the type of appliances and their
417
operational conditions by analysing the electrical signals (Du
et al., 2010). Residential load monitoring and identification
was first proposed in the 1980s by George Hart (Hart, 1992).
The operating schedules of individual loads or groups of
loads are determined by identifying the times at which
electrical power measured change from one steady-state
value to another. This steady-state change is known as
events. The events of appliances usually correspond to the
appliances either being turning ON or OFF and are denoted
by their magnitude and sign of real and reactive power
(Laughman, C. et al., 2003).
3.1 Appliance Signatures for Energy Disaggregation
Most appliances are identified by their distinctive
characteristics under certain condition. Appliance signature
is said to be a significant parameter of the total load that
provides information about the nature and operating
condition of individual appliance in the load (Zhang, et al
2011). Non-intrusive load monitoring system (NILMS) infers
individual loads of ON or OFF by checking signatures that
supply information on their activities. When an appliance
switched ON and OFF power, sample changed and a new
steady-state power level is established. The difference
between the two state power levels is called an event. Event
signature can be fundamental frequency or harmonic
frequency signatures (Ehrhardt-Martinez, 2010), (Norford
and Leeb, 1996).
3.2 Fundamental Frequency Signatures
At the utility, fundamental frequency can be used as
appliances signature by measuring the power, current or
admittance of the total load and by considering the step
change as signatures. The utility voltage varies over time and
the actual voltage can vary within 10% of the nominal
voltage supply. A linear appliance (i.e., the relationship
between voltage and current is linear) plugged into the
varying voltage source will also draw a current within the
varying voltage. The power consumption will then vary by
20%. Fundamentally, in NILM, changes detected in the total
load must provide information about events within the load.
Thus, the variations in power consumption do not provide an
ideal signature of the connected appliance for reasons
external to the load. Consequently, to abrogate the alteration
of voltage, the linear model suggests that admittance is better
than power and current as a signature. Admittance depends
on the voltage of a linear appliance and is additive when the
appliances are wired in parallel. The load admittance Y (t) is
given by equation 2:
P (t )
Y (t )  (2)
2
V (t )
Where; P (t) and V(t) are measured power and r.m.s. voltage.
However, proper admittance is not the best choice of
appliances signature, since it lacks engineering intuition
about the values to expect and their units. Therefore,
admittance in normalized power is preferred. The admittance
in normalized power is given by equation 3:
IFAC CPES 2015
418
December 9-11, 2015. Delhi, India E.J. Aladesanmi et al. / IFAC-PapersOnLine 48-30 (2015) 415–420
 120 
2 changes, the magnitudes of active and reactive power also
2
Pnormal ( t )  120 Y ( t )    P ( t )
 V (t ) 
Equation 3 depicts the power if the utility provides a steady
voltage and the load obey a linear model. The value of 120
corresponds to the nominal voltage in the USA power
distribution system (Ehrhardt-Martinez, 2010).
3.3 Harmonic Frequency Signatures
Harmonic currents produced by the appliance can be used as
a signature to identify the appliance. A linear model suggests
that the utility voltage waveform is directly proportional to
the current response. For instance, if the voltage waveform is
sinusoidal, the current response will also be sinusoidal,
although many appliances are obviously nonlinear in this
respect. At higher frequencies, notable current are generated
by many power electronics devices. Apart from the resistive
heaters and incandescent lights, virtually all appliances
produce mixed harmonic currents. Harmonic current
signatures might be very useful in identifying certain
appliances that are too similar to distinguish using real and
reactive power (Ehrhardt-Martinez, 2010), (Nakano, 2006).
Signatures for appliance identification can generally be
grouped into: steady-state signature and transient-state
signature (Du et al., 2010). In this paper, only steady-state
signature will be discussed.
3.4. Steady-State Signatures
The steady-state signatures of appliance are obtained from
the difference between steady-state properties of the
appliance operating conditions, estimated as the difference
between the operating levels of the connected state (Ehrhardt-
Martinez, 2010), (Haasz, and Madani, 2014), (Perez, MNV,
2011). The steady-state based techniques include techniques
based on the active and reactive power; techniques based on
the current waveform characteristics and harmonic and
techniques based on V-I Trajectory. Due to space limitation,
the V-I Trajectory technique will not be discussed here.
Interested reader can read (Du et al., 2010), (Ehrhardt-
Martinez, 2010).
3.4.1. Techniques Based on Active and Reactive Power
Active power is also called real power. It is the power
capable of performing useful work. It is also said to be the
conversion of electrical energy into another form of energy
such as mechanical work or heat. It is motivated by resistive
loads where current and voltage components are in phase.
Reactive loads such as coils and capacitors consume no
electrical energy as they store it and return it back into the
source. This power is called reactive power and it generates
magnetic and electric fields. Reactive power is consumed
due to the presence of reactance in a circuit such as motors,
transformers or solenoids (Perez, MNV, 2011). The real
power and the reactive power are measured and recorded
such that the
variation in active and reactive power can be used to identify
different types of loads. As the condition of the appliance
(3) change. These values are then compared with the predefined
database values of load power. The Load can be identified
through the position in P-Q plane as shown in Figure 3. From
Figure 3, it can be seen that many appliances are located
around the horizontal axis. The loads that are far from each
other in the plot can be identified only by using reactive and
active power.
Fig.3: Real and reactive power of electric loads in residential
buildings in the P-Q plane (Perez, MNV, 2011)
Using this approach, the success rate of loads identification
of large residential loads can be greater than 80% (Du et al.,
2010). Other approaches that were proposed for appliance
identification based on changed in active and reactive power,
include the temporal motif mining approach (Shao, et al.,
2012), and a hidden Markov model (HMM) based on
combined load model (Kolter, and Jaakkola, 2012). The
temporal motif mining approach is based on the steady-state
analysis and detects repeated sequences of power changes.
The purpose of the method is to identify the shortest repeated
sequence of power changes, adding up to zero and
corresponding to full operation of cycle of each appliance.
The hidden Markov model (HMM) identifies the presence of
individual loads from total power consumption. The method
is used to obtain daily operating schedule (or time-of-day
energy usage) and daily power consumption of household
appliances. The model can be used to identify
thermostatically controlled automatic appliances (such as
fridge, air conditioner and water heater), fixed operation
humanly activated appliances (such as dishwasher and
washing machine) and usage dependent humanly activated
devices (such as computer, microwave and printer). Since the
individual and combined power consumption waveforms of
these appliances are composed of different steady-state power
levels and a steady-state power level is a stationary stochastic
process, the HMM based approach is a suitable modelling
approach to describe and to identify these appliances due to
the strength of HMM which lies in the fact that its models are
a combination of stationary stochastic processes. The states
of the HMM are used to model the stationary stochastic
process and the state transition probability is used to describe
the transition between the processes. Furthermore, (Kolter
and Jaakkola, 2012), (Ghahramani and Jordan, 1997)
proposed Factorial Hidden Markov Model (FHMM)
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December 9-11, 2015. Delhi, India E.J. Aladesanmi et al. / IFAC-PapersOnLine 48-30 (2015) 415–420 419
approach which is an extension of HMM. The approach can
be used to solve complex problems with multiple time series.
In spite of the widely use of active and reactive power in
appliances identification, the technique still has some
limitations. Firstly, some appliances with the same power
consumption or low power appliances cannot be identified by
the technique. However, according to (Du et al., 2010), the
efficiency of load identification using active and reactive
power based technique can be improved using rule-based
method. The algorithm uses meter data (measured energy
consumption data), with assumptions about the consumer
attitude. In a scenario where two or more loads have similar
power demand levels, the algorithm uses decision analysis
approach to distinguish between them, based on the
assumptions regarding the usage of these appliances, such as
the time of day or the length of usage. Beside the
aforementioned limitation, another limitation to load
identification based on real and reactive power is that the
technique is based on steady-state power consumption. Thus,
it cannot be used in real-time. However, some loads in
residential buildings do not yield reliable steady-state
measurements (Du et al., 2010), (Lam, et al., 2006).
3.4.2. Technique Based on Current Waveform Characteristic
and Harmonics
The best sets of information to identify appliances include
current and voltage, although it is not practically viable to
compare the waveforms because of the computation
limitation and sensitivity issues. Also, abstracting features
from the waveform for appliance identification is a challenge.
Thus, peak current, average current and r.m.s. current, current
timing have been selected for load identification (Du et al.,
2010). The current features in the appliance database are
transmitted to a home server, which compares the feature of
known appliance with the received feature to identify an
appliance’s model and activity. However, the method is
generally affected by noise, calculation timing and variation
in voltage. Also, the technique cannot identify correctly the
appliances with the same power level (Jing and Honggeng,
2012), (Ito, et.al., 2004). Current harmonic is mostly used for
identifying appliances with similar energy consumption
(Simivasan, et al., 2006), (Yoshimoto, et al., 2000), (Morie,
and Suga, 1991). Current waveforms are easy to be calculated
and represented. Thus, in order to improve the identification
efficiency and accuracy, they are often combined with P-Q
plane methods and transient power methods for load
identification. Current harmonics can be calculated using
measured or collected data with a high frequency of about 8,
000 kHz sampling rate. Fast Fourier transforms (FFT) and
Short-time Fourier Transform (STFT) of current waveforms
are also used to analyse time-varying harmonic current. For
single-phase loads, real and reactive power correspond to the
envelop in phase and quadrature current draw by the load
relative to the voltage. The short time Fourier transform
computes estimates of the real, reactive and higher frequency
components of the current (Laughman, C. et al., 2003). In
addition, power factor (PF) and harmonic distortion in the
current can also be used to identify loads in its steady-state
signature. PF can distinctly identify a purely resistive loads
419
and power electronic loads. Current harmonics are suitable
for identifying power electronic loads since they are
nonlinear and generate current harmonics (Du et al., 2010),
(Jing, and Honggeng, 2012), (Prasad and Semwal, 2013),
(Akbar and Khan, 2007), (Sultanem, 1991), (Cole and
Albicki, 2000), (Xu, and Dong, 2012). In order to improve
the identification efficiency and accuracy, current harmonics
are often combined with real and reactive power methods and
transient power methods for load identification (Laughman,
C. et al., 2003).
4. ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF NON-
INTRUSIVE LOAD MONITORING
4.1. Advantages of NILM
Compared to intrusive load monitoring, NILM has a number
of important advantages. Some of these advantages include
low cost of installation and maintenance due to fewer
components to install, maintain and remove, greater
reliability and smaller space requirements. The ease of
installation will allow more appliances to be monitored in
more homes, providing broader data and in many cases more
accurate data. In addition, unlike conventional intrusive
systems which are usually restricted to a certain number of
appliances, NILM system is not restricted or limited by
communication bandwidth, it only depends on the
sophistication of the algorithms and hence can decompose the
total load (Yoshimoto, 2000a, b) Also, being less expensive,
it can be placed at many sites, thereby reducing the biases
that result from small samples. Furthermore, it can be used by
customers who would not allow the intrusion of power utility
into their premises. Finally, non-intrusive load monitoring
equipment and wiring may provide a constant utility presence
to the customer resulting in a change in energy consumption
habits (Ehrhardt-Martinez, 2010).
4.2. Disadvantages of NILM
Continuously variable appliance such as light dimmers and
appliances that operates constantly like clocks cannot be
detected by NILM technique. Also, NILM cannot distinguish
between electrically identical appliances such as two burners
of the same size on an electric stove. However, these
limitations can be alleviated by harmonic current signatures.
Another disadvantage of NILM is that it has greater potential
for undetected error. There is a greater potential for the
reported data to contain significant errors since the total load
is disaggregated in software rather than the hardware of
separate sensors and communication channels. Moreover, the
software may not recognize unusual appliances that are not in
the database. NILM has not been experimented on multistate
appliances such as dishwashers and heat pumps (Ehrhardt-
Martinez, 2010).
5. CONCLUSIONS
This paper presents an overview of various methods of
monitoring and identification of electrical appliances in
IFAC CPES 2015
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December 9-11, 2015. Delhi, India E.J. Aladesanmi et al. / IFAC-PapersOnLine 48-30 (2015) 415–420

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