Non-Intrusive Load Monitoring with Norwegian Smart Meters

Abstract

The smart meters to be installed in Norway by 2019 is thought to open up for a more efficient and flexible power grid and have so far cost the Norwegian distribution system operators(DSO) well over 10 Billion NOK, an investment left to be payed back by the consumers in the years to come. In return for this cost the customers become legal owners of the data collected by the meter, and they are free to utilize this data in any desired way, potentially to improve the energy management of their household.

In this report the concept of non-intrusive load monitoring(NILM) is considered for being used with Norwegian meters, to help give the consumers a detailed consumption feedback down to the appliance level. It is explained in detail how the concept can be used as a processing tool to break down smart meter data into the consumption of each individual appliance in the household, and how this can be used to improve energy efficiency.

To investigate the potential of NILM implemented with the Norwegian smart metering system, the electricity data streamed on the meter's home area network (HAN) interface is analyzed in depth. This analysis includes investigating the regulations set for the smart meter data as well as studying the documentation of the Norwegian meters.

It is known that there are three meter types installed in Norwegian homes, all providing data to the customers at different frequencies, and the main goal of this report is to find out whether or not this is problematic when performing NILM. Both through close analysis of the data provided by the individual meters and through applying a basic NILM algorithm it is found that the difference in data may have significant effect on the accuracy of a NILM algorithm. Hence, even though it is possible to apply NILM with all Norwegian meters, some customers have an unfair disadvantage due to the hardware installed in their home, a disadvantage that should be avoided since the customers are not free to choose their own meter.