Building automation and other electricity end-use automation often include energy
management that controls and monitors end user's loads. Time resolution of about 1
minute is typically needed and long delays are unacceptable, when the measurements
are used in control loops or observed online. Often the systems are monitored from a
remote control centre. Alarms from abnormal load behavior are useful.
About the monitoring, for individual loads and appliances, it is needed for
- development and updating of load models and forecasts
- verification of control response
- some load control strategies.
Time resolution of 1 to 10 minutes is usually adequate for modeling and verification
purposes. Modeling and verification tolerate delays of several days, but faster response
makes these tasks more efficient.
When using some type of load control strategies, particular end user’s loads or
appliances may require individual monitoring capabilities. Such load control strategies
are usually developed for residential customers and imply that the proper infrastructure
is deployed within end user’s facilities in order to transmit the information from individual
appliances to the control centre. If we want to have a significant amount of controlled
load, many residential customers have to be monitored and the cost of real time
monitoring of many individual residential appliances is high. Even if one-minute time
resolution is very desirable, delays of 5 or 10 minutes could be acceptable, if very fast
response is not compulsory.
Due to the high communication costs of minute level data at large number of residential
customers other methods are usually applied to define demand response of small
customers like feeder based measurements and statistical analysis.