Methodology based on smart meters applied to the identification of residential loads

The Smart Meter technology has become a trend in the future of power distribution systems and some applications should be provided with its installation in residential consumers. Thus, this paper presents a method of residential loads identification using data provided by a smart meter. In this sense, the ZigBee communication technology is proposed to exchange data between smart meter and consumer. Hence, a consumer-side software could be installed in a consumer device, such as: tablet, smartphone, microcomputer, etc. This software receive some measurements in order to show the loads identified. Moreover, this software is able to furnish the actual residential consumption. The identification method was developed using intelligent systems (neural networks, neural-fuzzy and neural-genetic) and its results were compared in order to determine its applicability.