Week summary

This week I've been working on three things:

1. Using preliminary data from Alex's fridge, computer and TV to estimate the fraction of his household's energy consumption. I've updated last week's pie chart to reflect this.
2. Investigating the technique of subtracting known appliance electricity readings from the aggregate readings. This does not appear to work reliably for power readings at the granularity of 1 reading/minute. However, it does work more reliably for energy readings, as is represented by the previous post. The line graph in the post shows the aggregate power readings with the dishwasher, washing machine and tumble dryer removed.
3. Categorising the features which I use to identify appliances when looking at their isolated signatures or their signature within the aggregate data. I've made a list of the features which can be used when disaggregating data captured from a smart meter, and linked them to who proposed it, and who has investigated it. This list is not complete yet, and I intend to expand it as I work through my collected literature.

I am now going away skiing for a week. Following this, I will attend a 4 day course on research and presentation skills.

Future work plan:

• Collect data over a 2-3 week period using Alex's aggregate supply, and sub-metered data from 6 appliances. I'm expecting these sub-metered appliances to make up roughly half of the total energy consumption, and will hopefully be able to clearly see the remaining high consumers easily. I'm hoping to be able to recognise some of these appliances: kettle, microwave, cooker, hob and lighting.