Efficient nonintrusive distinguisher of small nonlinear electrical loads

The work contributes to the identification of small nonlinear appliances which are hardly distinguished by existing noninvasive load monitoring methods. It improves the steady load monitoring by introducing distortion power as an additional parameter to the widely used Hart's algorithm based on measurement of active and reactive power. The results show that the method efficiently distinguishes the variety of nonlinear appliances whose usage is fast growing nowadays. Furthermore, this approach is advantageous in comparison with other approaches, which use three parameters to precisely identify the appliances, due to its simplicity. Namely, distortion power can be easily determined using only smart meters and thus no any additional measuring equipment is required.