Behind the Meter Solar Generation refers to the generation of solar energy by photovoltaic systems installed on the consumer’s side of the utility meter. In contrast to utility-scale solar installations, which are connected directly to the grid, behind-the-meter solar systems are installed on residential, commercial, or industrial properties. The generated solar energy is typically used on-site to meet the electricity needs of the host facility. Any excess energy can sometimes be fed back into the grid, depending on local regulations and policies.

Posts

A Temperature-Informed Data-Driven Approach for Behind-the-Meter Solar Disaggregation

The lack of visibility to behind-the-meter (BTM) PVs causes many challenges to utilities. By constructing a dictionary of typical load patterns based on daily average temperatures and power consumptions, this paper proposes a temperature-informed data-driven approach for disaggregating BTM PV generation. This approach takes advantage of the high correlation between outside temperature and electricity consumption, as well as the high similarity between PV generation profiles. First, temperature-based fluctuation patterns are extracted from customer load demands without PV for each specific temperature range to build a temperature-based dictionary (TBD) in the offline stage. The dictionary is then used to disaggregate BTM PV in real-time. As a result, the proposed approach is more practical and provides a useful guideline in using temperature for operators in online mode. The proposed methodology has been verified using real smart meter data from London.