Smart Meter implementation for Non Intrusive Identification of Residential Appliances in India

Abstract

In most of the developing countries limited sources of power generation are not capable to fulfill the increased electricity demand, rises the gap between demand and supply. This gap can be reduced with the help of three means: i) Curtailment of load (outage); this method leads to revenue loses or consumer dissatisfaction. ii) Increase in the power generation; this method is beneficial but a long term process and requires lots of investment. iii) Load management; this method is the best solution in present scenario. A smart meter can efficiently use for the load management purpose which includes features like device identification, control and fault analysis of household appliances. Additionally smart meter allows the billing transparency and dynamic pricing technology. Generating more power than actually needed from conventional sources are accompanied with CO2 emission, it is now an essential to incorporate renewable sources as much as possible. In this context the role of the smart grid system has assumed great importance. The nonconventional energy sources used in domestic can be incorporated in distributed network with the help of smart meter. This is where it is different from the electronic version of the energy meter. Use of smart meters helps to meet electricity demand of consumers during peak load periods, or supplement the increase in demand by incorporating the renewable energy and storage system. newlineIn order to meet the large demand-supply gap in power production, Government of India has decided to install smart meters in selected areas of fourteen states. Smart meters are required to identify home appliances to fulfill various tasks in the smart grid environment. Both intrusive and non-intrusive methods have been suggested for identification in published reports. However, intrusive method is not suitable for cost and privacy reasons, particularly for Indian domestic residences. On the other hand, techniques using non-intrusive appliance load monitoring (NIALM) are yet to result in meaningful practical