Novel Fractal-Based Features for Low-Power Appliances in Non-Intrusive Load Monitoring

Non-intrusive load monitoring is a method that disaggregates the overall energy consumption of a building to estimate the electric power usage and operating status of each appliance individually.Prior studies have mostly concentrated on the identification of high-power appliances like HVAC systems while overlooking the existence of low-power appliances.Low-power consumer appliances have comparable power consumption patterns,which can complicate the detection task and can be mistaken as noise.This research tackles the problem of classification of low-power appliances and uses turn-on current transients to extract novel features and develop unique appliance signatures.A hybrid feature extraction method based on mono-fractal and multi-fractal analysis is proposed for identifying low-power appliances.Fractal dimension,Hurst exponent,multifractal spectrum and the Hölder exponents of switching current transient signals are extracted to develop various‘turn-on’appliance signatures for classification.Four classifiers,i.e.,deep neural network,support vector machine,decision trees,and K-nearest neighbours have been optimized using Bayesian optimization and trained using the extracted features.The simulated results showed that the proposed method consistently outperforms state-of-the-art feature extraction methods across all optimized classifiers,achieving an accuracy of up to 96%in classifying low-power appliances.

Event-Driven Non-Intrusive Load Monitoring Algorithm Based on Targeted Mining Multidimensional Load Characteristics

Nowadays,the advancement of nonintrusive load monitoring(NILM)has been hastened by the ever-increasing requirements for the reasonable use of electricity by users and demand side management.Although existing researches have tried their best to extract a wide variety of load features based on transient or steady state of electrical appliances,it is still very difficult for their algorithm to model the load decomposition problem of different electrical appliance types in a targeted manner to jointly mine their proposed features.This paper presents a very effective event-driven NILM solution,which aims to separately model different appliance types to mine the unique characteristics of appliances from multi-dimensional features,so that all electrical appliances can achieve the best classification performance.First,we convert the multi-classification problem into a serial multiple binary classification problem through a pre-sort model to simplify the original problem.Then,ConTrastive Loss K-Nearest Neighbour(CTLKNN)model with trainable weights is proposed to targeted mine appliance load characteristics.The simulation results show the effectiveness and stability of the proposed algorithm.Compared with existing algorithms,the proposed algorithm has improved the identification performance of all electrical appliance types.

A Review of NILM Applications with Machine Learning Approaches

In recent years,Non-Intrusive LoadMonitoring (NILM) has become an emerging approach that provides affordableenergy management solutions using aggregated load obtained from a single smart meter in the power grid.Furthermore, by integrating Machine Learning (ML), NILM can efficiently use electrical energy and offer less ofa burden for the energy monitoring process. However, conducted research works have limitations for real-timeimplementation due to the practical issues. This paper aims to identify the contribution of ML approaches todeveloping a reliable Energy Management (EM) solution with NILM. Firstly, phases of the NILM are discussed,along with the research works that have been conducted in the domain. Secondly, the contribution of machinelearning approaches in three aspects is discussed: Supervised learning, unsupervised learning, and hybridmodeling.It highlights the limitations in the applicability of ML approaches in the field. Then, the challenges in the realtimeimplementation are concerned with six use cases: Difficulty in recognizing multiple loads at a given time,cost of running the NILM system, lack of universal framework for appliance detection, anomaly detection andnew appliance identification, and complexity of the electricity loads and real-time demand side management.Furthermore, options for selecting an approach for an efficientNILMframework are suggested. Finally, suggestionsare provided for future research directions.

Machine Learning: An Overview

Machine learning is an Artificial Intelligence (or AI) application, an idea that came into being by giving machines access to data and letting them learn by themselves. AI has been making headlines, especially since ChatGPT was introduced. Malaysia has taken many significant steps to embrace and integrate the technology into various sectors. These include encouraging large companies to build AI infrastructure, creating AI training opportunities (for example, the local media reported Microsoft and Google plan to invest USD 2.2 billion and USD 2 billion, respectively, in the said activities), and, as part of AI Talent Roadmap 2024-2030, establishing AI faculty in one of its public universities (i.e., “Universiti Teknologi Malaysia”) leading the way in the integration and teaching of AI throughout the country. This article introduces several products developed by the author (for the energy and transportation industries) and recommends their improvement by incorporating Machine learning.

Exploring CNN Model with Inrush Current Pattern for Non-Intrusive Load Monitoring

Non-Intrusive Load Monitoring(NILM)has gradually become a research focus in recent years to measure the power consumption in households for energy conservation.Most of the existing algorithms on NILM models independently measure when the total current load of appliances occurs,and NILM usually undergoes the problem of signatures of the appliance.This paper presents a distingue NILM design to measure and classify the appliances by investigating the inrush current pattern when the alliances begin.The proposed method is implemented while the five appliances operate simultaneously.The high sampling rate of field-programmable gate array(FPGA)is used to sample the inrush current,and then the current is converted to be image patterns using the kurtogram technique.These images are arranged to be four groups of data set depending on the number of appliances operating simultaneously.Furthermore,the five proposed modifications convolutional neural networks(CNN),which is based on very deep convolutional networks(VGGNet),are designed by adjusting the size to decrease the training time and increase faster operation.The proposed CNNs are then implement as a classification model to compare with the previous models.The F1 score and Recall are used to measure the accuracy classification.The results showed that the proposed system could be achieved at 99.06 accuracy classification.

A novel non-intrusive load monitoring technique using semi-supervised deep learning framework for smart grid

Non-intrusive load monitoring(NILM)is a technique which extracts individual appliance consumption and operation state change information from the aggregate power consumption made by a single residential or commercial unit.NILM plays a pivotal role in modernizing building energy management by disaggregating total energy consumption into individual appliance-level insights.This enables informed decision-making,energy optimization,and cost reduction.However,NILM encounters substantial challenges like signal noise,data availability,and data privacy concerns,necessitating advanced algorithms and robust methodologies to ensure accurate and secure energy disaggregation in real-world scenarios.Deep learning techniques have recently shown some promising results in NILM research,but training these neural networks requires significant labeled data.Obtaining initial sets of labeled data for the research by installing smart meters at the end of consumers’appliances is laborious and expensive and exposes users to severe privacy risks.It is also important to mention that most NILM research uses empirical observations instead of proper mathematical approaches to obtain the threshold value for determining appliance operation states(On/Off)from their respective energy consumption value.This paper proposes a novel semi-supervised multilabel deep learning technique based on temporal convolutional network(TCN)and long short-term memory(LSTM)for classifying appliance operation states from labeled and unlabeled data.The two thresholding techniques,namely Middle-Point Thresholding and Variance-Sensitive Thresholding,which are needed to derive the threshold values for determining appliance operation states,are also compared thoroughly.The superiority of the proposed model,along with finding the appliance states through the Middle-Point Thresholding method,is demonstrated through 15%improved overall improved F1micro score and almost 26%improved Hamming loss,F1 and Specificity score for the performance of individual appliance when compared to the benchmarking techniques that also used semi-supervised learning approach.

Non-intrusive Load Monitoring Based on Graph Total Variation for Residential Appliances

Non-intrusive load monitoring is a technique for monitoring the operating conditions of electrical appliances by collecting the aggregated electrical information at the household power inlet.Despite several studies on the mining of unique load characteristics,few studies have extensively considered the high computational burden and sample training.Based on lowfrequency sampling data,a non-intrusive load monitoring algorithm utilizing the graph total variation(GTV)is proposed in this study.The algorithm can effectively depict the load state without the need for prior training.First,the combined Kmeans clustering algorithm and graph signals are used to build concise and accurate graph structures as load models.The GTV representing the internal structure of the graph signal is introduced as the optimization model and solved using the augmented Lagrangian iterative algorithm.The introduction of the difference operator reduces the computing cost and addresses the inaccurate reconstruction of the graph signal.With low-frequency sampling data,the algorithm only requires a little prior data and no training,thereby reducing the computing cost.Experiments conducted using the reference energy disaggregation dataset and almanac of minutely power dataset demonstrated the stable superiority of the algorithm and its low computational burden.

Energy Disaggregation of Industrial Machinery Utilizing Artificial Neural Networks for Non-intrusive Load Monitoring

This paper explores the application of non-intrusive load monitoring techniques in the industrial sector for disaggregating the energy consumption of machinery in manufacturing processes. With an increasing focus on energy efficiency and decarbonization measures, achieving energy transparency in production becomes crucial. Utilizing non-intrusive load monitoring, energy data analysis and processing can provide valuable insights for informed decision-making on energy efficiency improvements and emission reductions. While non-intrusive load monitoring has been extensively researched in the building and residential sectors, the application in the industrial manufacturing domain needs to be further explored. This paper addresses this research gap by adapting established non-intrusive load monitoring techniques to an industrial dataset. By employing artificial neural networks for energy disaggregation, the determination of energy consumption of industrial machinery is made possible. Therefore, a generally applicable cross-energy carrier method to disaggregate the energy consumption of machinery in manufacturing processes is developed using a design science research approach and validated through a practical case study utilizing a compressed air demonstrator. The results show that the utilization of artificial neural networks is well-suited for energy disaggregation of industrial data, effectively identifying on and off states, multi-level states and continuously variable states. Non-intrusive load monitoring should be further considered in the research of emerging artificial intelligence technologies in energy consumption evaluation. It can be a viable alternative for intrusive load monitoring and is a prerequisite to installing energy meters for every machine.

Analysis of blasting damage in adjacent mining excavations

Following a small-scale wedge failure at Yukon Zinc＇s Wolverine Mine in Yukon, Canada, a vibration monitoring program was added to the existing rockbolt pull testing regime. The failure in the 1150 drift occurred after numerous successive blasts in an adjacent tunnel had loosened friction bolts passing through an unmapped fault. Analysis of blasting vibration revealed that support integrity is not compromised unless there is a geological structure to act as a failure plane. The peak particle velocity（PPV） rarely exceeded 250 mm/s with a frequency larger than 50 Hz. As expected, blasting more competent rock resulted in higher PPVs. In such cases, reducing the round length from 3.5 m to 2.0 m was an effective means of limiting potential rock mass and support damage.

Methodology for the disaggregation and forecast of demand flexibility in large consumers with the application of non-intrusive load monitoring techniques

Technological advances,innovation and the new industry 4.0 paradigm guide Distribution System Operators towards a competitive market that requires the articulation of flexible demand response systems.The lack of measurement and standardization systems in the industry process chain in developing countries prevents the penetration of demand management models,generating inefficiency in the analysis and processing of informa-tion to validate the flexibility potential that large consumers can contribute to the network operator.In this sense,the research uses as input variables the energy and power of the load profile provided by the utility energy meter to obtain the disaggregated forecast in quarter-hour intervals in 4-time windows validated through metrics and its results evaluated by the RMS error to get the total error generated by the methodology with the appli-cation of Machine Learning and Big Data techniques in the Python computational tool through Combinatorial Disaggregation Optimization and Factorial Hidden Markov models.

Development of All-Weather and Real-Time Bottom-Mounted Monitor of Bed Load Quantity

Quantity of bed load is an important physical parameter in sediment transport research. Aiming at the difficulties in the bed load measurement, this paper develops a bottom-mounted monitor to measure the bed load transport rate by adopting the sedimentation pit method and resolving such key problems as weighing and desilting, which can achieve long-time, all-weather and real-time telemeasurement of the bed load transport rate of plain rivers, estuaries and coasts. Both laboratory and field tests show that this monitor is reasonable in design, stable in properties and convenient in measurement, and it can be used to monitor the bed load transport rate in practical projects.

A systematic approach to ON-OFF event detection and clustering analysis of non-intrusive appliance load monitoring

The aim of non-intrusive appliance load monitoring （NIALM） is to disaggregate the energy consumption of individual electrical appliances from total power consumption utilizing non-intrusive methods. In this paper, a systematic approach to 0N-0FF event detection and clustering analysis for NIALM were presented. From the aggregate power consumption data set, the data are passed through median filtering to reduce noise and prepared for the event detection algorithm. The event detection algorithm is to determine the switching of ON and OFF status of electrical appliances. The goodness- of-fit （GOF） methodology is the event detection algorithm implemented. After event detection, the events detected were paired into ON-0FF pairing appliances. The results from the ON-OFF pairing algorithm were further clustered in groups utilizing the K-means clustering analysis. The K- means clustering were implemented as an unsupervised learning methodology for the clustering analysis. The novelty of this paper is the determination of the time duration an electrical appliance is turned ON through combination of event detection, ON-OFF pairing and K- means clustering. The results of the algorithm implemen- tation were discussed and ideas on future work were also proposed.

Analysis of Dynamic Appliance Flexibility Considering User Behavior via Non-intrusive Load Monitoring and Deep User Modeling

The research on non-intrusive load monitoring(NILM)and the growing deployment of home energy manage-ment system(HEMS)have made it possible for households to have a detailed understanding of their power usage and to make appliances participate in demand response(DR)programs.Appliance flexibility analysis helps the HEMS dispatching appli-ances to participate in DR programs without violating user’s comfort level.In this paper,a dynamic appliance flexibility analysis approach using the smart meter data is presented.In the training phase,the smart meter data is preprocessed by NILM to obtain user’s appliances usage behaviors,which is used to train the user model.During operation,the NILM is used to infer recent appliances usage behaviors,and then the user model predicts user’s appliances usage behaviors in the DR period considering long-term behaviors dependences,correlations between appliances and temporal information.The flexibility of each appliance is calculated based on the appliance characteristics as well as the predicted user’s appliances usage behaviors caused by the control of the appliance.The HEMS can choose the appliance with high flexibility to participate in the DR programs.The case study demonstrates the performance of the user model and illustrates how the appliance flexibility analysis is performed using a real-world case.

Comparative Evaluation of Machine Learning Models and Input Feature Space for Non-intrusive Load Monitoring

Recent advancement in computational capabilities has accelerated the research and development of non-intrusive load disaggregation.Non-intrusive load monitoring(NILM)offers many promising applications in the context of energy efficiency and conservation.Load classification is a key component of NILM that relies on different artificial intelligence techniques,e.g.,machine learning.This study employs different machine learning models for load classification and presents a comprehensive performance evaluation of the employed models along with their comparative analysis.Moreover,this study also analyzes the role of input feature space dimensionality in the context of classification performance.For the above purposes,an event-based NILM methodology is presented and comprehensive digital simulation studies are carried out on a low sampling real-world electricity load acquired from four different households.Based on the presented analysis,it is concluded that the presented methodology yields promising results and the employed machine learning models generalize well for the invisible diverse testing data.The multi-layer perceptron learning model based on the neural network approach emerges as the most promising classifier.Furthermore,it is also noted that it significantly facilitates the classification performance by reducing the input feature space dimensionality.

Training Load Monitoring Algorithms on Highly Sub-Metered Home Electricity Consumption Data

The growing interest in energy-efficient buildings is driving changes in investment, design, and occupant behavior. To better focus cost and resource conservation efforts, electricity consumption feedback can be used to provide motivation, guidance, and verification. Disaggregating by end-use helps both consumers and producers to identify targets for conservation. While hardware-based sub-metering is costly and labor-intensive, non-intrusive load monitoring (NILM) is capable of gathering detailed energy-use data with minimal equipment cost and installation time. However, variations in measurements between metering devices complicate the process of compiling the necessary appliance profiles. Future work involves the devel-opment of NILM algorithms using sensor fusion and detailed appliance-level data gathered from a highly-sensed house currently being constructed near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Unsupervised Learning for Non-intrusive Load Monitoring in Smart Grid Based on Spiking Deep Neural Network

This paper investigates the intelligent load monitoring problem with applications to practical energy management scenarios in smart grids.As one of the critical components for paving the way to smart grids’success,an intelligent and feasible non-intrusive load monitoring(NILM)algorithm is urgently needed.However,most recent researches on NILM have not dealt with practical problems when applied to power grid,i.e.,①limited communication for slow-change systems;②requirement of low-cost hardware at the users’side;and③inconvenience to adapt to new households.Therefore,a novel NILM algorithm based on biology-inspired spiking neural network(SNN)has been developed to overcome the existing challenges.To provide intelligence in NILM,the developed SNN features an unsupervised learning rule,i.e.,spike-time dependent plasticity(STDP),which only requires the user to label one instance for each appliance while adapting to a new household.To upgrade the feasibility in NILM,the designed spiking neurons mimic the mechanism of human brain neurons that can be constructed by a resistor-capacitor(RC)circuit.In addition,a distributed computing system has been designed that divides the SNN into two parts,i.e.,smart outlets and local servers.Since the information flows as sparse binary vectors among spiking neurons in the developed SNN-based NILM,the high-frequency data can be easily compressed as the spike times,and are sent to the local server with limited communication capability,whereas it is unable to handle the traditional NILM.Finally,a series of experiments are conducted using a benchmark public dataset.Meanwhile,the effectiveness of developed SNN-based NILM can be demonstrated through comparisons with other emerging NILM algorithms such as the convolutional neural networks.

Non-invasive load-shed authentication model for demand response applications assisted by event-based non-intrusive load monitoring

With today’s growth of prosumers and renewable energy resources,it is inevitable to incorporate the demand-side approaches for reliable and sustainable grid operation.In this context,demand response is a promising technique facilitating the consumers to play a substantial role in the energy market by altering their energy consumption patterns in times of peak demand or other critical contingencies.However,effective demand response deployment faces numerous challenges including trust deficit among the concerned stakeholders.This paper addresses the mentioned issue by proposing a non-invasive load-shed authentication model for demand response applications,assisted by an improved event-based non-intrusive load monitoring approach.For the said purposes,an improved event detection algorithm and machine learning model:support vector machine with a combination of genetic algorithm and GridSearchCV,is presented.This paper also presents a comprehensive real-world case study to validate the effectiveness of the proposed model in a real-life scenario.In the given context,all the simulations are carried out on low sampling real-world load measurements:Pecan Street-Dataport,where electric vehicle and air conditioning are employed as potential load elements for evaluation purposes.Based on the presented case study and analysis of the results,it is established that the presented improved event-based non-intrusive load monitoring approach yields promising performance in the context of multi-class classification.Moreover,it is also concluded that the proposed low sampling event-based non-intrusive load monitoring assisted non-invasive load-shed authentication model is a viable and promising solution for the effective implementation of demand response applications.

Graph representation learning-based residential electricity behavior identification and energy management

It is important to achieve an efficient home energy management system(HEMS)because of its role in promoting energy saving and emission reduction for end-users.Two critical issues in an efficient HEMS are identification of user behavior and energy management strategy.However,current HEMS methods usually assume perfect knowledge of user behavior or ignore the strong correlations of usage habits with different applications.This can lead to an insuffi-cient description of behavior and suboptimal management strategy.To address these gaps,this paper proposes non-intrusive load monitoring(NILM)assisted graph reinforcement learning(GRL)for intelligent HEMS decision making.First,a behavior correlation graph incorporating NILM is introduced to represent the energy consumption behavior of users and a multi-label classification model is used to monitor the loads.Thus,efficient identification of user behavior and description of state transition can be achieved.Second,based on the online updating of the behavior correlation graph,a GRL model is proposed to extract information contained in the graph.Thus,reliable strategy under uncer-tainty of environment and behavior is available.Finally,the experimental results on several datasets verify the effec-tiveness of the proposed model.

Residential end-uses disaggregation and demand response evaluation using integral transforms

Demand response is a basic tool used to develop modern power systems and electricity markets. Residential and commercial segments account for 40%–50% of the overall electricity demand. These segments need to overcome major obstacles before they can be included in a demand response portfolio. The objective of this paper is to tackle some of the technical barriers and explain how the potential of enabling technology(smart meters) can be harnessed, to evaluate the potential of customers for demand response(end-uses and their behaviors) and,moreover, to validate customers’ effective response to market prices or system events by means of non-intrusive methods. A tool based on the Hilbert transform is improved herein to identify and characterize the most suitable loads for the aforesaid purpose, whereby important characteristics such as cycling frequency, power level and pulse width are identified. The proposed methodology allows the filtering of aggregated load according to the amplitudes of elemental loads, independently of the frequency of their behaviors that could be altered by internal or external inputs such as weather or demand response. In this way, the assessment and verification of customer response can be improved by solving the problem of load aggregation with the help of integral transforms.

State identification of home appliance with transient features in residential buildings

Nonintrusive load monitoring(NILM)is crucial for extracting patterns of electricity consumption of household appliance that can guide users9 behavior in using electricity while their privacy is respected.This study proposes an online method based on the transient behavior of individual appliances as well as system steady-state characteristics to estimate the operating states of the appliances.It determines the number of states for each appliance using the density-based spatial clustering of applications with noise(DBSCAN)method and models the transition relationship among different states.The states of the working appliances are identified from aggregated power signals using the Kalman filtering method in the factorial hidden Markov model(FHMM).Thereafter,the identified states are confirmed by the verification of system states,which are the combination of the working states of individual appliances.The verification step involves comparing the total measured power consumption with the total estimated power consumption.The use of transient features can achieve fast state inference and it is suitable for online load disaggregation.The proposed method was tested on a high-resolution data set such as Labeled hlgh-Frequency daTaset for Electricity Disaggregation(LIFTED)and it outperformed other related methods in the literature.