Residential Electrical Load Monitoring and Modeling – State of the Art and Future Trends for Smart Homes and Grids

Abstract

Building energy consumption accounts for a large fraction of the total global energy usage, and considerable energy savings are expected to be achieved in this respect through residential electrical load monitoring. Due to the limitations on the practical implementation of in-depth and expensive monitoring systems, non-intrusive load monitoring (NILM) is becoming a hot topic. In this paper, an overview of the state of the art residential electrical load monitoring is presented. Different from previous reviews, the applications of load monitoring are particularly addressed, based on which, technical challenges of load monitoring techniques, including NILM, are identified and thoroughly discussed, together with possible developments and trends predicted from the authors’ perspective.

Keywords:

• smart home
• smart grid
• smart community
• smart appliance
• appliance scheduling
• artificial intelligence (AI)
• residential energy data
• heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC)
• home energy management system (HEMS)
• smart plug
• load modeling
• non-intrusive load monitoring (NILM)
• building energy
• load forecast
• demand response
• big data
• machine learning
• deep learning
• artificial neural networks (ANN)
• long short-term memory (LSTM)
• edge computing
• cybersecurity
• internet of things (IoT)
• distributed renewable energy source
• photo-voltaic (PV)
• net-zero-energy home
• time of use
• prosumer
• transactive energy

Additional information

Funding

The co-authors who are with University of Kentucky gratefully acknowledge the support of the National Science Foundation, NSF Award #1936131, and of University of Kentucky, the L. Stanley Pigman endowment. Any findings and conclusions expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the NSF.

Notes on contributors

Xinmei Yuan

Xinmei Yuan received his B.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from Tsinghua University, Beijing, China in 2004 and 2010, respectively. He worked as a visiting student at Wisconsin Electric Machines and Power Electronics Consortium (WEMPEC), University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA, in 2008. Since 2010, he has been a member of faculty with the College of Automotive Engineering at Jilin University, China, and became a full professor in 2016. He is currently a visiting scholar at University of Kentucky, USA. He is the author of more than 30 technical publications and 10 patents. His research interests focus on modeling and control for various applications, including electric and hybrid electric vehicles, power electronics and electric motors, smart grid, charging infrastructure network, and the like.

Peng Han

Peng Han received the B.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the School of Electrical Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing, China, in 2012 and 2017, respectively. From November 2014 to November 2015, he was a guest Ph.D. student funded by China Scholarship Council with the Department of Energy Technology, Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark, where his research focused on brushless doubly fed machines for wind energy conversion and high-power drive. He is currently a Postdoctoral Researcher with the SPARK Laboratory, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY, USA. His current research interests include electric machines, power electronics, and renewable energy.

Yao Duan

Yao Duan received the B.Eng. degree in electrical engineering from Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, and the Ph.D. degree from the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, USA. He is currently a Chief Specialist with the Toshiba International Corporation, Houston, TX, USA. His current research interests include electric motor drives, electrical machine designs, and condition monitoring.

Rosemary E. Alden

Rosemary E. Alden is a University Scholar at University of Kentucky (UK), currently integrating her BS and PhD studies in electrical engineering, a research fellow and an NSF REU student in the SPARK Laboratory, ECE Department. She is also pursuing the PEIK Certificate in Power and Energy at UK, where she is a University of Kentucky Presidential Scholarship recipient, an L. Stanley Pigman Scholar, and a recipient of other scholarships and awards. During her time at UK, she also worked as a teaching assistant and tutor. Her industrial and utility experience includes a co-op with CMTA, Inc. and an internship with the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI). Her current research focuses on smart home and smart grid technologies, renewable energy generation and integration.

Vandana Rallabandi

Vandana Rallabandi received the Master's and Ph.D. degrees from the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Mumbai, India, in 2008 and 2013, respectively. She was a Postdoctoral Researcher with the SPARK Laboratory, Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY, USA. Prior to this, she was a Research Engineer with the Generic Electric (GE) Global Research Center, Bengaluru, India. She is a Lead Engineer with the GE Global Research Center in Niskayuna, NY, USA. She has authored/coauthored more than 40 journal and conference proceedings papers, including three that received awards from IEEE, IET, and ICRERA, respectively, coauthored four book chapters, and has more than 5 invention disclosures and patent pending applications. Her industrial projects have been focused on electric machines and power electronics drives and her academic research includes renewable energy devices and systems, energy storage at transmission and distribution levels, power systems, and smart grid technologies.

Dan M. Ionel

Dan M. Ionel is Professor of Electrical Engineering and the L. Stanley Pigman Chair in Power at the University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY, where is also the Director of the SPARK Laboratory and of the Power and Energy Institute of Kentucky (PEIK). He previously worked in industry and concurrently held academic appointments as a research and visiting professor. Dr. Ionel contributed to technology developments with long lasting industrial impact, holds more than 35 patents, published more than 200 papers, and coauthored 3 books. His research has been supported directly by industry, and by NSF, NIST, DOE, and NASA. Dr. Ionel is an IEEE Fellow, the Chair of the Steering Committee for the IEEE IEMDC Conferences and received the IEEE Power and Energy Society Veinott Award. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the Electric Power Components and Systems Journal. His research interests include renewable energy, electric machines and power electronic drives, electric vehicles, electric power systems, energy storage, smart buildings and grid.