Non-Intrusive Load Monitoring Algorithm for PV Identification in the Residential Sector

This paper presents a novel approach for identification of photovoltaic systems in the residential sector. This is needed in response to increasing embedded generation on distribution networks. To date non-intrusive load monitoring techniques have focused mostly on identifying conventional loads on the customer side. This paper demonstrates the application of non-intrusive load monitoring to identify residential distributed generation, thereby enabling techniques to improve system flexibility and stability. The demonstrated methodology combines basic statistics with the Support Vector Machine technique, to identify PV load signatures. PMU measurements from the residential sector are used to aggregate measurements based largely on electric current records. The methods presented have applications for network operators, both in real time control and generation scheduling.