Unsupervised Disaggregation of PhotoVoltaic Production from Composite Power Flow Measurements of Heterogeneous Prosumers
For distribution system operators and prosumers, this enables monitoring of PV generation using only aggregated power flow and irradiance data, reducing the need for per-site sensors.
This paper tackles the problem of disaggregating photovoltaic (PV) generation from net power flow measurements at the point of common coupling. Four algorithms are proposed and validated on a real-life setup with 4 houses, achieving accurate estimation of PV production without direct sub-metering.
We consider the problem of estimating the unobserved amount of photovoltaic (PV) generation and demand in a power distribution network starting from measurements of the aggregated power flow at the point of common coupling (PCC) and local global horizontal irradiance (GHI). The estimation principle relies on modeling the PV generation as a function of the measured GHI, enabling the identification of PV production patterns in the aggregated power flow measurements. Four estimation algorithms are proposed: the first assumes that variability in the aggregated PV generation is given by variations of PV generation, the next two use a model of the demand to improve estimation performance, and the fourth assumes that, in a certain frequency range, the aggregated power flow is dominated by PV generation dynamics. These algorithms leverage irradiance transposition models to explore several azimuth/tilt configurations and explain PV generation patterns from multiple plants with non-uniform installation characteristics. Their estimation performance is compared and validated with measurements from a real-life setup including 4 houses with rooftop PV installations and battery systems for PV self-consumption.