Biblio

In photovoltaic (PV) systems, machine learning-based methods have been used for fault detection and diagnosis in the past years, which require large amounts of data. However, fault types in a single PV station are usually insufficient in practice. Due to insufficient and non-identically distributed data, packet loss and privacy concerns, it is difficult to train a model for diagnosing all fault types. To address these issues, in this paper, we propose a decentralized federated learning (FL)-based fault diagnosis method for insulated gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) open-circuits in PV inverters. All PV stations use the convolutional neural network (CNN) to train local diagnosis models. By aggregating neighboring model parameters, each PV station benefits from the fault diagnosis knowledge learned from neighbors and achieves diagnosing all fault types without sharing original data. Extensive experiments are conducted in terms of non-identical data distributions, various transmission channel conditions and whether to use the FL framework. The results are as follows: 1) Using data with non-identical distributions, the collaboratively trained model diagnoses faults accurately and robustly; 2) The continuous transmission and aggregation of model parameters in multiple rounds make it possible to obtain ideal training results even in the presence of packet loss; 3) The proposed method allows each PV station to diagnose all fault types without original data sharing, which protects data privacy.

Energy use of buildings represents roughly 40% of the overall energy consumption. Most of the national agendas contain goals related to reducing the energy consumption and carbon footprint. Timely and accurate fault detection and diagnosis (FDD) in building management systems (BMS) have the potential to reduce energy consumption cost by approximately 15-30%. Most of the FDD methods are data-based, meaning that their performance is tightly linked to the quality and availability of relevant data. Based on our experience, faults and relevant events data is very sparse and inadequate, mostly because of the lack of will and incentive for those that would need to keep track of faults. In this paper we introduce the idea of using crowdsourcing to support FDD data collection processes, and illustrate our idea through a mobile application that has been implemented for this purpose. Furthermore, we propose a strategy of how to successfully deploy this building occupants' crowdsourcing application.