An Overview of Non-Intrusive Load Monitoring: Approaches, Business Applications, and Challenges

Abstract

Load Monitoring (LM) is a fundamental step to implement effective energy management schemes. LM includes Intrusive LM (ILM) and Non-Intrusive LM (NILM). Compared with intrusive approaches, non-intrusive approaches enjoy low cost, easy installation, and promising scalable commercialization potentials. This paper provides a survey of effective NILM system framework and advanced load disaggregation algorithms, reviews load signature models, presents existing datasets and performance metrics, summarizes commercial applications such as demand response, highlights the challenges, and points out future research directions.