KNN methods with varied k, distance and training data to
disaggregate NILM with similar load characteristic.
Fitra Hidiyanto
Electrical Engineering
Universitas Indonesia
Depok, Indonesia
fitra.hidiyanto@ui.ac.id
ABSTRACT
Non-Intrusive Load Monitoring (NILM) enables detection of
appliances which are ON or OFF even the characteristics for each
equipment installed in homes, industries, laboratories, etc. by
disaggregating the total electrical consumption at the central
Power panel. The K-NN method is one of the most simple and
commonly used machine learning methods for classifying with
good performance and competing with even complex methods.
In this paper the K nearest neighbor (KNN) method is performed
on NILM AMPds data which having distinctive similar load
characteristic between different appliances, with 9 different
distances, 7 types of total training data (10% -70%) and performed
for k (1-25) for best result, then an accuracy performance
comparison for disaggregation on 100% data and cross-validation
(10%-80%) data also performance comparison of disaggregation on
data which feature real power only, compared with data which
feature having additional reactive power data, have done.
From the test and research results it was found that by adding
reactive power data, the disaggregation results on NILM data
which having distinctive similar load characteristic between
different appliances with KNN method were more than 20%
accurate. It up to 95.06% accuracy on 70% training data, while for
disaggregation on data that test data were completely different
from the training data, disaggregation with 20% training data
provides better performance in terms of accuracy as well as
process speed.
CCS CONCEPTS
• Computing methodologies • Machine learning • Learning
paradigms • Supervised learning • Supervised learning by
classification
KEYWORDS
Non-Intrusive Load Monitoring (NILM), k-nearest neighbour
(KNN), disaggregation, Real Power and Reactive power, Accuracy,
Precision, Recall.
1 Introduction
Energy management is one of the topics that is developing
today, this is one solution to the problem of energy shortages due
to an increase in the number of industries and population where
Abdul Halim
Electrical Engineering
Universitas Indonesia
Depok, Indonesia
ahalim@ee.ui.ac.id
the average growth in energy consumption is 2.3% - 2.5% and by
the end of 2030, it is estimated that the increase will be twice or
around 16000 TWh per year [1]. The majority of the world's
energy that is utilized is more than 83% derived from
unsustainable energy derived from fossil while energy derived
from renewable energy such as wind, solar, biomass energy is
only around 2% of total energy [2]. Non-intrusive load monitoring
(NILM) is one of the ways developed and recommended for energy
efficiency, whether in the housing sector, companies, industries
or government, or for fault diagnosis applications [3], without the
need to access each piece of appliances to install additional
equipment or take measurements on each appliance [4].
In this paper, we research the disaggregation of the NILM data
that we download from the AMPDs server with the K-Nearest
Neighbors (KNN) machine learning method with variations in the
amount of training data and test data, k variations, distance
variations and comparison of disaggregation results on only real
power data only (1 feature) and if given additional reactive power
data (2 features).
2 Methodology
2.1 Problem definition
From NILM research aspects, robust algorithms to distinctive
similar load characteristics between different appliances and load
modeling feature considering unknown appliances are challenges
to be solved and still remain open up to days [5]. The problem that
we tested in this research is to prove that the addition of reactive
power data to NILM disaggregation data will provide far more
accurate results than just disaggregation of real power data. NILM
is a method of recognizing the characteristics of devices,
especially the ON-OFF of each device installed by detection of
total electric power used which is the accumulated power of
several devices that are on.
Where P(t) is the total power consumption reading (aggregated)
while Pi is the power of each device that is on [4]. Fig. 1 below
shows total power consumption chart of 3 appliances which
shows similar real power overlapping from several conditions. In
addition to solve the problem of similar load characteristics in
NILM, in this paper, answers are also sought on what data, both
 APCORISE’20, June, 2020, Depok, West Java, Indonesia F. Hidiyanto et al.

training data, and test data also at what distance method, as well Table 1. Classification of NILM disaggregation
as what k values will provide maximum accuracy.

Fig. 1. Aggregated Power Consumption 2.3 Distance Measurement

2.2 KNN Methods In this paper, we use 9 distances which is the best in terms of
accuracy of 8 major distance families that contain a total of 54
K-nearest-neighbor (KNN) is one of machine learning kinds of distances [7]. 9 distances used in this paper are :
algorithms used to classify new objects based on a number of their
closest neighbors. This algorithm is relatively simple and is a) Manhattan (MD), has the following formula:
classified as supervised learning, lazy learning algorithm, and
instance-based or memory-based learning [6]. The K-NN
classification algorithm that has been done is as follow:
b) Lorentzian distance (LD), formulated as follows:
 Prepare data training and testing data from NILM data
 Choose K value
 Count distance value (d) for each data test to data
training c) Canberra distance (CanD), formulated as follows:
 Sort d from smallest to biggest
 Classify test data based on k closest neighbor
d) Clark distance (ClaD), formulated as follows:

e) Divergence distance (DivD), formulated as follows:

f) Squared Chi Squared (SCSD), formulated as below :

g) Average distance (AvgD), Known as Euclidean average:

h) Hassanat Distance (HasD), is formulated as below:

Fig. 2. Flowchart K-NN classification method

 KNN methods with varied k, distance and training data to
disaggregate NILM with similar load characteristic.
Where:
i) Euclidean distance (ED), commonly used method:
3 Simulation test and result
3.1 Data Preprocessing
In this paper, we conduct research and tests with synthetic
data formed from 3 appliances data obtained from AMPds2 data:
The Almanac of Minutely Power dataset (version 2) published
online [8]. The three appliances used are Dishwasher as usage
chart is shown in figure 3, Clothes washer which usage chart is
shown in figure 4 (appliance type 2) and TV and entertainment
which usage chart is shown in figure 5 below.
Figure 3. Dishwasher usage chart
Figure 4. Clothes washer Usage Chart
APCORISE’20, June, 2020, Depok, West Java, Indonesia
Figure 5. TV and Entertainment Usage Chart
From the Individual AMPds data, we made synthetic data that
fulfilled the possible variations of ON and OFF of the three devices
in time based with features are Real Power and Reactive Power
and obtained data that will be used as a reference for conducting
tests (100% data, contain of 1840 data) which chart shown in Fig.
1, which is chart data in two dimension that indicate overlap data
from similar value of Real Power data from all classes, and
classification variation is shown in table 1, which shows 8
classification of 8 possible variation from 3 appliances.
3.2 Simulation and analysis for Real power
data only (1 feature)
In the simulation of this sub-chapter we did a test on synthetic
AMPds data but only for real power data and performed on 100%
synthetic data as test data with training data 10% - 70%, with 9
variations in distance and with variations in k 1-25 for each test.
From table 2 below can be seen that the highest Accuracy value is
obtained in the test results with 70.87% training data for 72.61%
accuracy with k = 3 for distance Average, Euclidean and
Manhattan, and it appears that the greater amount of training data
the higher accuracy value will be gotten.
Table 2. Accuracy for Real power only 100% test data and 10%
- 70% training data for k value majorities is 3.
From the graph in figure 6 below which shows the value of
accuracy vs k, it can be clearly seen that the highest value on the
graph is 70.87% at k = 3, and the greater the value of K, the
accuracy decreases. Besides that, it seems that the accuracy value
is getting bigger with increasing training data.
 APCORISE’20, June, 2020, Depok, West Java, Indonesia
Fig 6. Graphic % Accuracy vs K value for training set size 10%
to 70% (KNN Real Power only for 100% data test)
To test cross-validation data, in this case, test data is
completely different with training data (no data is similar), for
training set 10.3% - 81%, the accuracy of the results can be seen in
the fig. 7 where accuracy increases with the greater K value, and
it is found that for training data 10.33% and 81.09% the accuracy is
almost the same, but because of the large data, classification
process speed will be much faster with training data 10.33%.
Fig. 7. Graphic % Accuracy vs K value for training set size
10.33% to 81.09% (KNN Real Power only for Cross-validation data
test)
F. Hidiyanto et al.
Tabel 3. Confusion matrix Clark distance with training set
10.33% (k=24) at cross-validation data.
From the confusion matrix table 3 above we can conclude there
is confusion in determining the class between classes 3 and 8, also
between classes 6 and 7, there is also a prediction error where the
actual class 6 but predicted as class 2. Classification of accuracy in
this confusion matrix based on the following equation [9].
Where:
TP = number of True Positive sample in the test set,
TN = number of True negative sample in the test set,
FP = number of False Positive sample in the test set,
FN = number of False Negative samples in the test set.
In order to assess the performance with respect to every class,
we also compute precision and recall measures which defined as
[2]:
From table 4 below it can be seen that the value of precision
and recall is directly proportional to accuracy, and it shows
maximum value for training data at 10.33% for distance Canberra,
Clark, and Divergence, where for the confusion matrix table is
approximately similar as table 3.
 KNN methods with varied k, distance and training data to
APCORISE’20, June, 2020, Depok, West Java, Indonesia
disaggregate NILM with similar load characteristic.

3.3 Simulation and analysis for Real Power

and Reactive Power (2 features)

As in the previous sub-chapter, in this sub-chapter we tested

synthetic AMPds data, but for real power & reactive power data
and performed 100% synthetic data as test data with training data
10% - 70%, with 9 variations of distance and with variations k 1 -
25 for each test. From table 5 it can be seen that the highest
Accuracy value is obtained up to 95.06% in the test results with
70.87% training data with k = 1.

Tabel 5. Accuracy of Real & Reactive power 100% test data and
10% - 70% training data

Fig. 9. Graph of % Accuracy vs K value (1-25) for training set

size 10.33% to 81.09% (KNN Real & Reactive Power for Cross-
validation data test.

It can be seen that the accuracy value increases with increasing
of training set data as shown in graphic at fig. 8 below.
For cross-validation test with Real & Reactive Power data, you
can see the accuracy results in fig. 9 for training data 10.33% -
81.09% which shows that 21% training data achieved the highest
Accuracy value at 72.69%, for k value 14 so it is very beneficial
with small data that can produce high accuracy.

Tabel 6. Confusion matrix Manhattan distance, training set

70% (k=1) tested on 100% data, accuracy 95.06%

Confusion matrix shown in table 6 above is from Manhattan

distance, 70% training data and accuracy up to 95.06%. To get a
better result we have to check confusion between actual class and
Fig. 8. Graphic % Accuracy vs K value (1-25) for training set wrong prediction result which marked with red circle, for
size 10% to 70% (KNN Real & Reactive Power for 100% data test) example between actual class 6 and predicted as class 7 vice versa.
 APCORISE’20, June, 2020, Depok, West Java, Indonesia
From table 7 Precision and Recall above, it can be seen that the
value of precision and recall has a maximum value when the
accuracy is maximum, namely, the Euclidean distance with 21%
training data with a precision value of 0.7659 and a recall of 0.7606,
can be compared with the results on the Real power only data test
which is only 0.5593 precision and 0.5637 recall.
It can be conclude that the results of disaggregation in Real
Power and Reactive Power feature data get more than 20% higher
in accuracy, precision and recall compared to disaggregation only
in real power feature only, both test on 100% data or cross-
validation test.
4 Conclusion
The k-nn method for disaggregating NILM data that has
similar load characteristic will give much better results when
adding other data as a differentiator, which in this research is
reactive power data which will give different values for some
equipment even with the same real power values with the result
of more than 20% accuracy compared to the disaggregation
method with only real power value. Of the 9 methods tested, the
Average, Canberra, Clark, Divergence, Euclidean, Hassanat,
Lorentzian, Manhattan and Squared Chi-Squared methods all give
good accuracy and vary for each amount of training data.
From tests results with variations in the amount of training
data from 10% to 70%, the results are with more training data,
recognition rate will be better for testing the initial 100% data
which obtained highest Accuracy value at 95.06%, precision 0.957
and recall 0.9568 in 70% training data with Manhattan and
Lontzian distance for k = 1 , whereas when tested with cross-
validation data which test data are different and not similar as
training data, highest Accuracy value obtained is 72.69% with 21%
training data for Euclidean distance with k = 14.
The results of disaggregation with the K-nn algorithm with
additional reactive power have very good results up to 95%
accuracy, 0.957 precision and 0.9568 recall value for
disaggregation tests on the initial 100% data with 70% training
data from the initial data, while disaggregation with the K-nn
algorithm without additional reactive power have around 72.61%
accuracy, 0.7654 precision and 0.7382 recall value on the initial
100% data with 70% training data from the initial data.
The results of disaggregation by KNN method with additional
reactive power values with the cross-validation method which
test data are different and not the same as training data, have an
up to 72.69% accuracy, 0.7659 precision and 0.7606 recall value
with training data 21%, While the results of disaggregation by
KNN method with data only real power with cross-validation
methods have an up to 54.77% accuracy, 0.5593 precision and
0.5637 recall value for training data 10.3%.
F. Hidiyanto et al.
From tests results in only real power data with variations in
the amount of training data from 10% to 70%, for testing the initial
data 100%, obtained highest Accuracy / RR value at 72.61% in 70%
training data with Manhattan, average and Euclidean distance for
k = 3 , whereas when tested with cross-validation data which test
data are different and not the same as training data, obtained
highest Accuracy / RR value is 54.93% with 81% training data for
Average, Euclidean, Hassanat, Lontzian, Manhattan distance with
k = 20.
The interesting thing in disaggregation test results for all
distance on 100% initial data, the accuracy value will increase with
the number of training data addition with k value 1, but for KNN
disaggregation test results on cross-validation data where the test
data is different and not similar compared to the training data, it
is obtained for maximum Accuracy for KNN with features are real
Power data & reactive power is 20% training data, with 72.69%
accuracy for k = 14, while for KNN with feature only Real Power
data, maximum Accuracy is obtained at 81% training data with
54.93% accuracy for k = 20, but only a small difference with
training data 10.33% with 54.77% accuracy at k = 24. In terms of
processing time, it will be more efficient with small training data
but produces maximum accuracy or only a little difference
compared to KNN with large training data.
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