Andrew.berrisford@bchydro.

com


New Technologies for Load Research at BC Hydro


A. J. BERRISFORD

BC Hydro (CANADA)
SUMMARY

Before the era of Smart Metering, most customer meters had a single register that was read
periodically for billing purposes, typically monthly. These register reads provided the utility with no
information on how the customers electricity demand fluctuated during the month, or how, for
example weather, affected this demand. Utilities established Load Research teams to collect and
analyze more detailed information about customer consumption patterns, based on interval
consumption (kWh) data collected from interval data recorders monitoring a statistical sample of
customers served by the utility. These recorders may also be located at transformers, feeders, or any
point in the distribution system of interest. The data are analysed for cost-of-service studies,
distribution planning modelling, DSM planning and evaluation, rate design, and load forecasting
applications. This paper focuses on End-use Load Research, where the appliances or loads within a
customers premises are monitored.

The new technologies developed for Smart Metering and Smart Grid applications in recent years, and
still evolving, can be applied to the field of Load Research. These include digital metering and
communications technologies, both of which have evolved tremendously. Although primarily
developed for metering at the point of supply to a customer, these technologies can also be used for
end-use Load Research applications. A distinct advantage will be the ability to give the customer
access to their end-use data on the next day, which will allow us to assess the impact of in-home
feedback at the appliance level. End-use metering complements the other methods of estimating end-
use load shapes that are used by the team, like Conditional Demand Analysis (CDA) and Non-
intrusive Load Monitoring (NILM).

The paper describes the development and initial testing of a new end-use metering system, designed
with the new metering and communications technologies of Smart Metering, and intended to integrate
seamlessly with the Smart Grid of the future.



KEYWORDS

End-use Metering, IEEE-1459, Load Research, Zigbee


CIGR Canada
21, rue dArtois, F-75008 PARIS
CIGRE-147 Conference on Power Systems
http : //www.cigre.org
Vancouver, October 17- 19, 2010

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1. RESIDENTIAL END-USE LOAD RESEARCH AT BC HYDRO

Like many large electric utilities, BC Hydro has a Load Research team that studies the patterns of
electricity use over time, from milliseconds to decades. Most of the Load Research effort is directed at
the site or building service level, for all types of customers. The team has about 1,500 Process
Systems Inc. (PSI) interval metering recorders located throughout the province, of which about 350
are at residential premises.

About 150 of these residential recorders are equipped with four channels. Using one channel to record
the total house load, the remaining three channels can be used to collect data from transducers, which
monitor the consumption of up to three appliances in the home. These could be a dishwasher, fridge,
microwave, or any other appliance. So, in addition to the 350 homes, we were monitoring about 450
residential appliances. Figure 1 shows the architecture of the end-use metering system. The
transducers are inserted between the appliance and the wall outlet. They measure the appliance load
and transmit the appliance consumption to a Receiver using Power Line Carrier (PLC)
communications. The Receiver collects the PLC signals from up to 3 transducers and feeds the
pulses to a 4-channel Load Research recorder attached to the billing meter.

PSI End-use Equipment
TDR
TDR
REC
PSI
BC
Hydro
House
Power Line Carrier
Pulses
~150 4-Channel PSI Recorders
~150 4-Channel
PSI Receivers
~450 1-Channel PSI Transducers
The system requires sets of Transducers, Receivers, and PSI Recorders

Figure 1 The PSI End-use Metering System

2. THE NEED FOR RESIDENTIAL END-USE METERING

Utilities study the electricity usage patterns of customers and their end-uses for several reasons,
including:

1) Forecasting future demand more accurately by understanding changing usage patterns.
2) Developing and evaluating DSM programs targeted at particular end-uses.
3) Designing rates that will effectively reduce bills without inconveniencing the customer.

Examples of end-uses that have affected residential forecasts in recent years are:

1) The increasing penetration of CFLs in the residential market, displacing incandescent lamps.
2

2) The increasing numbers of large flat-screen TV sets (these use two or three times the energy
of the tube TV sets they replace).
3) The average annual consumption of fridges has declined by over 50% over the past two
decades, due to efficiency improvements, codes and standards.
4) The increase in the numbers of computers and associated peripheral devices over the past
decade.
5) The growing number of residential appliances that have a standby load ie they draw power
even when not in use.

The very intrusive nature of residential end-use studies has meant that many studies are limited to a
few weeks or months of actual data collection (see for example [1]). Our goal is to have a long term
study, covering several years, so as to monitor and track changes in appliance consumption patterns in
response to technology development and DSM programs. This will continue the existing PSI end-use
study with new technology.

One of the most difficult loads to measure is lighting. This is because lighting is usually partly hard-
wired and partly plug load, sometime on mixed circuits, and often altered by adding and removing
lamps. Lighting studies often use photocell loggers [1], which record the times that lights are turned on
or off, and derive lighting load shapes. Our approach to obtain the lighting load for a home is to meter
all non-lighting loads and the total load, and take the difference to obtain the lighting load.

3. THE EXISTING END-USE METERING TECHNOLOGY

The existing PSI end-use metering technology in use at BC Hydro consists of three different devices:

1) The Transducer, which measures the appliance consumption and generates a PLC pulse rate
proportional to the appliance load.
2) The Receiver, which decodes the PLC pulses from up to three Transducers and converts them
into standard metering pulses.
3) The four-channel recorder, that collects and records the pulses from the Receiver, as well as
recording the total energy consumed by the home.

The end-use transducers use a form of TDM (Time Division Multiplication) to derive power from the
analog voltage and current waveforms. The TDM output is converted to a series of pulses proportional
to energy (Wh), and the pulses from each transducer are transmitted to a Receiver using a Power
Line Carrier (PLC) technology. Each Transducer in a home uses a different PLC carrier frequency.
The Receiver decodes the PLC signals and sends the Wh pulses to the Recorder.

These Load Research recorders were designed in the early 80s, and are nearing the end of their useful
lives. Although the recorders have a high survival rate, the end-use transducers and their associated
receivers have suffered a high failure rate, and only about 30 of the original 150 sets are still providing
useful data. Residential end-use metering projects in the past have all suffered from several major
shortcomings:

1) High capital cost typically $1,000 or more per end-use metering point.
2) Unreliable data collection most end-use metering had to be downloaded manually every
month or two, or used unreliable PLC technology to transmit data to an external recorder.
3) Limited measurement capability typically the equipment measured only kWh, and we are
interested in other quantities as well, such as voltage, reactive loads, and even distortion
levels.
4) Limited to three appliances per house using the PSI technology. We have used an alternative
multi-channel DataTrap logger to monitor more end-uses, but this is even more instrusive as
CTs are hard-wired to every load, typically at the distribution panel.

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As the BC Hydro SMI Project gets rolled out over the next few years, our old PSI Load Research
recorders will be retired, along with the decaying end-use transducers. A new residential end-use
metering system that could leverage the SMI infrastructure was the obvious solution that is, a device
that could monitor appliance consumption and transmit the data back to us via the SMI
communications network. However, when we started looking for a solution in 2007, there was nothing
commercially available.

4. RESIDENTIAL END-USE LOAD RESEARCH IN THE SMI WORLD

The SMI system envisioned for BC Hydro will retrieve hourly kWh readings from each billing meter,
and 15-minute interval data from a sample of at least 10,000 meters for Load Research purposes. This
will consign the present fleet of Load Research metering equipment to the recycling bin, and their last
contribution to the company will be to perform an audit of the SMI meters installed at their sites to
confirm that the new meters and meter data collection systems are operating as expected.

Data for customer level Load Research will come from the SMI system in a few years time. The jury
is still out on whether the availability of interval data for the entire population of utility customers will
mean the end of the statistical sampling and expansion techniques used for the last half century.

However, the SMI system will not cater for end-use Load Research needs.

Each SMI meter will include a Zigbee Gateway for communicating energy and/or pricing and/or
Demand Response messaging to the customer over a Zigbee-based Home Area Network (HAN). The
primary intention for this HAN is to communicate energy consumption and cost information to the
customers In-Home Display (IHD) device. The communications protocol used between the meter and
the IHD, known as the Zigbee Smart Energy Profile (SEP) also makes provision for collecting register
and interval data from devices connected to the HAN however, many of the capabilities we want to
use for Load Research are optional in the SEP, and meter vendors may not support them.

5. NEW METERING AND COMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGIES

The evolution of Smart Meters over the past decade has led to the development of sophisticated digital
metering chips that can measure almost any electrical quantity desired, at a fraction of the cost of
earlier analog metering technology. The latest generation of chips can also extract power quality
information, and apply modern metering definitions [2]. Active power, reactive power, voltage and
current, and even harmonics can be measured with an accuracy and cost only dreamed of a decade
ago.

At the same time, communications technology has also developed new wireless and PLC techniques
that are significantly cheaper and more reliable. These include, for example, the Bluetooth, Z-wave
and Zigbee wireless, and Homeplug PLC approaches. Together with the growing penetration of
broadband and wireless internet access into many homes, these new technologies could make end-use
data collection a lot cheaper and easier than our existing equipment. Add in the communications for
the SMI system, and end-use metering in the 21
st
century should be a walk in the park.

Our initial thoughts were to develop an end-use meter (EUM) system that could simply piggy-back
onto the SMI system, and use the SMI system infrastructure to collect our end-use data (Figure 2). We
would get our EUM to join the Zigbee network hosted by the SMI meter, and send the data back via
the SMI communications network. This turned out to be a rather simplistic approach, as none of the
SMI vendors were considering the HAN as a data collection tool. Their focus was on the information
and control aspects sending SMI meter consumption data to a HAN device, sending pricing data to
the customer via the SMI meter, or controlling a thermostat via the SMI meter. Our application
appeared to be the first that proposed collecting data from the HAN via the SMI system. This
realization led us to redirect our goal we would ensure that we could collect our data from the EUM
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devices via the SMI system if possible, over the internet if not, or by manual downloads to a USB
memory stick if necessary.

A J Berrisford A J Berrisford - - BC Hydro BC Hydro 14 14
Integrate Zigbee EUM into HAN Integrate Zigbee EUM into HAN
and SMI System and SMI System
MET
REC
MET
REC
BC
Hydro
House
SMI Meter
Adopt OpenHAN and Zigbee SE
Profile protocols.
HAN Gateway may be part of SMI
meter or external but I expect it to
be considered in SMI Design.
Use SMI comms to retrieve end-use
interval data
HAN
Gateway
SMI Comms

Figure 2 Integrating EUM into SMI System

The design of a replacement residential end-use meter started taking shape. This device would use a
modern metering chip to measure several electrical quantities, combined with one of the new
communications technologies, and include non-volatile data storage. As nothing like this was
commercially available in 2008, a prototype was built using a metering module and a Zigbee
controller module [3]. The prototype was based on two commercially available electronic modules
built into one of the PSI transducer housings. The modules were the STEVAK-IPE002 metering
module by ST Microelectronics and the Freescale Zigbee SRB prototyping module. The SRB board
included a non-volatile memory chip for data storage and enough spare program memory to
implement the metering firmware and communication with the metering module.

While working on this, we discovered a similar device under development by the British company
Energy Optimizers. This device, called a Plogg, was very similar to what we were developing.

The Plogg uses a metering chip by Teridian (recently bought by Maxim). The 71M6511 chip has a
metering DSP capable of measuring active and reactive power and energy as well as voltage, current,
frequency and phase angle. The chip also includes a microcontroller programmed to collect and format
the metering data, store it in an external memory, and a serial port to transfer it to a Zigbee radio
module. The Plogg uses the Telegesis XTR2 Zigbee module that provides an easy to use serial
command language and includes the complete Zigbee protocol stack. Telegesis produces a similar
device mounted in a USB stick for co-ordinating a Zigbee network from a PC.

6. PHASE ONE - PROOF OF CONCEPT

We bought a Plogg and tried it out. It was promising, but we had a lot of questions, and decided to use
a phased approach to develop the idea. The first phase was a proof of concept. We would try to
meter appliances in a single home to test the technologies. If this was successful, we would embark on
a more ambitious three home project, followed by a 20 home project. Finally, if all went well, we
would roll out to a full-scale sample of about 300 homes across British Columbia.
5


We purchased 30 Ploggs to meter all the plug loads in my home except the lights, using Zigbee
communications and collecting the data on a PC with a USB Zigbee port. This phase of the project
was to determine if:

1) The Ploggs could operate reliably at 110V
2) The Zigbee radio network was stable
3) We could collect data for four parameters at 15-minute intervals from each Plogg reliably
4) The PC software could cope with a large network of Ploggs
5) We could try to determine the lighting load using the new methodology

A J Berrisford A J Berrisford - - BC Hydro BC Hydro 27 27
Plogging Plogging my Home my Home USB Stick USB Stick
Plogg
Plogg
BC
Hydro
House
Laptop
PloggManager
Ploggs record 6 parameters every 15
minutes
Laptop interogates each Plogg every
60 minutes
Each interrogation takes about one
second
All 20 Ploggs are interrogated in
under one minute
Data transferred to BCH using
USB Flash stick.

Figure 3 Phase I Process

Twenty Ploggs were installed, programmed to record kWh consumed, kVARh lagging, kVARh
leading, and average Vrms every 15 minutes. The PC software was used to download the data from
the Ploggs hourly. The data files were copied to a memory stick periodically for transfer to our offices
(Figure 3). The 240V appliances (clothes dryer, stove, water heater, and baseboard electric space
heating) were not Plogged, and neither was the dishwasher, as it was hard-wired. This made the
estimation of the lighting load difficult. We decided to focus on metering and communications
reliability, and leave analytic issues for later.

The results of this Proof of Concept experiment were promising [4]. The Zigbee radio network
proved capable of delivering the Plogg data. The data transfer protocol was proprietary and initially
rather slow, and the Zigbee SEP was still evolving. Enhancements to the communications protocol by
the vendor increased the data transfer rate to an acceptable level. Interval data for a 6-week period
were collected and analyzed. Appliances metered (Figure 4) include the fridge (Legend KF), freezer
(KZ), kettle (KK), toaster (KG), and 42 plasma TV (B1E). The largest load in the authors home
(B2E) turned out to be a game server, running a modded version of a popular on-line game for the
world to play round the clock! (This free game service is no longer available.) The additional
measurement capabilities of the Plogg gave us insight into the reactive loads within a home for the
first time. Appliances with motors (fridge, freezer, and washer) all had large inductive loads (Figure 5)
even when they had excellent Energy Star ratings. Modern electronic devices have significant
capacitive loads. More details on this phase of the project are in [4].
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A J Berrisford A J Berrisford - - BC Hydro BC Hydro 28 28
Average Weekday 15A Plug Loads for AJB, excluding Lighting
November 20 to December 19, 2008
0.0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0.6
0.7
0.8
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24
Hour of Day
A
v
e
r
a
g
e

H
o
u
r
l
y

L
o
a
d

k
W
BW
B2G
B1P
LG
DG
DP
KG
KP
KM
KK
B1E
LE
B2E
B3E
KZ
KF
15A Appliance Loads I 15A Appliance Loads I
Pinball machines (LG)

Figure 4 Phase One Plug Loads

A J Berrisford A J Berrisford - - BC Hydro BC Hydro 38 38
15A Appliance Reactive Loads IV 15A Appliance Reactive Loads IV
24
1
210
422
42
24
Inductive
kVArh/yr
74
346
418
553
110
166
11
37
Acti ve
kWh/yr
7
36
35
6
Capacitive
kVArh/yr
Fridge
Freezer
Bed1 Entertain
Washer
Lounge Entertain
Dining PC
Kitchen Phone
Microwave
Appliance

Figure 5 Reactive Loads

7. PHASE TWO PROCESSES, SOFTWARE, COMMUNICATION

The experiment at the authors home led to the next phase expanding the project to three homes.
This second phase was initiated in September 2009 and is still underway. Three staff members
volunteered and we installed over 100 Ploggs in their homes, along with three laptop computers that
acted as gateways to the internet. Several Ploggs were enclosed in larger boxes with CTs suitable for
monitoring range and dryer circuits. Our co-op student developed a version of the Plogg Manager
7

application that added features we wanted, to further automate the data collection and network
management processes. The questions we wanted answered from Phase II included:

1) Can we manage the data collection of over 100 Ploggs at 3 sites remotely?
2) Can we integrate the Plogg data collection process into our existing Load Research processes?
3) How do we deal with missing data, non-communicating Ploggs, or relocated appliances?
4) Can we determine the lighting load accurately?
5) Do we need to Plogg every appliance or can we ignore some of them?

For this phase, the data stream was directed through our normal Load Research interval data collection
channels. The laptops transferred the data to BC Hydro daily after midnight, emailing a set of files to
our offices (Figure 6). These include a MDE interval data file, a text LOG file that listed any issues
that need operator attention (for example - a Plogg stopped communicating, or a Plogg clock drifted
more than 2 minutes a day), and a LST file listing all Ploggs present at midnight. The data files were
imported into MV90 along with interval data from other sources. The LOG and LST files are used by
the MV90 operator to diagnose and solve Plogg-related problems. MV90 (by Itron) is the metering
data management system used to collect data from all our PSI recorders. It performs Validation,
Estimation and Editing (VEE), followed by Aggregation (to calculate the lighting load), and exporting
the processed data to our data analysis systems. Valid data are stored in the Load Data Warehouse
where all team members can access them.

All the standard Ploggs as well as the custom 240V Ploggs for this phase were tested for safety by the
CSA and approved prior to installation.

A J Berrisford A J Berrisford - - BC Hydro BC Hydro 28 28
3 House Project 3 House Project Internet III Internet III
Plogg
Plogg
House
Laptop
PloggCenter
BC Hydro
MV90
MDE
LOG
LST
Email
MDE
LDW
Excel
Internet
MDE, LOG, LST
files
Emailed to
MV90 operator
Every morning

Figure 6 Phase II Process

The main findings of this phase were reported at the recent ACEEE conference [6], and are
summarized here:

1) We successfully measured the actual lighting load as described, and have noted that:
a. Any end-use metering errors affected the derived lighting load
b. Synchronization of clocks on all the Ploggs was vital to lighting load accuracy
2) The presence of end-use metering resulted in changes to electricity consumption patterns
8

3) VEE rules are difficult to establish for many appliances.
4) Automating the Plogg data flow through MV90 was not as easy as had been anticipated.
5) We learned a lot about appliance consumption patterns during this phase.

We also discovered that the new technology made appliance relocation too easy. A kettle could trade
places with a toaster and its Plogg with no indication to the utility that the appliances have
swapped places.

8. PHASE THREE AND MORE MOVING OUT OF THE LABORATORY

The next phase is to test an increase in scale as well as a move beyond the accommodating confines of
Load Research staff. Later in 2010 we will install Ploggs at about 20 homes, and expect to have 20 to
60 Ploggs per home, with a total of about 800 Ploggs. The volunteers will be BC Hydro staff, although
not from the Load Analysis Group. This phase will further test data collection and management
procedures and challenge the end-use maintenance processes. As the participants will have less direct
contact with our group, appliance relocation will be managed primarily by means of periodic
appliance surveys. A key new component for this phase will be a web-based user interface for
participants to access their own end-use data, in near real time or possibly a day after. In addition, we
are expecting that upgraded firmware will permit measurement of power quantities using the IEEE-
1459 definitions [2], and accurately quantify power quality issues caused by some appliances.

9. CONCLUSION

We have successfully demonstrated the use of modern metering and communications technologies for
residential end-use Load Research. This project will evolve to become an end-use metering extension
to the Smart Metering System envisioned for BC Hydro, benefiting from both the technologies and the
infrastructure to provide a cost-effective end-use Load Research system. Although similar systems
have been reported, see for example [7], our approach will be uniquely integrated into the Smart
Metering system. It will replace the ageing PSI system with an end-use metering system that is as
unobtrusive as possible, and complement the other methods of estimating end-use load shapes like
Conditional Demand Analysis (CDA) and Non-intrusive Load Monitoring (NILM). More details about
each phase of this project are available in the AEIC, WLRA, and ACEEE presentations [3-6]. The
third phase will be deployed this year, and if successful, we will be planning a full-scale rollout to
several hundred homes next year.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

[1] Rasmussen, Gaffney, Rubin, Illuminating Current CFL Usage Patterns: Results from a CFL
Metering Study, International Energy Program Evaluation Conference, New York, USA, 2005.
[2] Berrisford A, New Technology and Power Definitions Make Accurate Revenue Metering
Possible In the Presence of Harmonic Distortion, IEEE Electrical Power and Energy
Conference, Montreal, Canada, 2009
[3] Berrisford A, End-use Metering Options, AEIC Load Research Workshop, San Antonio,
Texas, USA, 2008.
[4] Berrisford, A, Plogging my Home An End-use Metering Experiment, WLRA Conference,
Atlanta, Georgia, USA, 2009
[5] Berrisford, A, EE Impact of End-use Metering, AEIC Load Research Workshop, San Destin,
Florida, USA, 2010.
[6] Nelson, D, and Berrisford, A, Residential End Use Monitoring: How Far Can We Go?,
ACEEE, Pacific Grove, California, USA, 2010.
[7] Rodrigues, A, Low-cost Wireless Electricity Metering System with User-Friendly Interface,
FEUP Thesis, Portugal, 2010.