Energy fault detection for small buildings based on peer comparison of estimated operating status

As the penetration of smart meters grows, new energy conservation services using electricity consumption data have drawn much attention. Yet service frameworks for small buildings to provide alerts automatically when a failure in energy conservation is detected have not been sufficiently investigated. Thus, we propose a framework for detecting energy faults based on peer comparison of operating time estimated by self-organizing maps from smart meter data with a coarse time resolution. The framework first defines a common operating status for the business type using the results of operating time estimation from multiple buildings of the same type, and then monitors the operating status at 1-h intervals using only a fault threshold parameter specified by the user. If each estimated operating status is judged to be significantly larger than the average level for the building type, the system identifies it as an energy fault. The results of case studies using an open building energy management system dataset suggest that the proposed framework can detect failures in energy conservation caused by inappropriate HVAC management, which usually results in higher contract power consumption, or by failure to turn off appliances that unnecessarily consume energy after business hours. (c) 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

A framework for detecting energy faults based on peer comparison of operating time estimated by self-organizing maps from smart meter data has been proposed, offering automatic alerts for energy conservation failures in small buildings.Monitoring the operating status at 1-hour intervals, the framework identifies energy faults through a fault threshold parameter specified by the user.