The Role of Data Analysis in the Development of Intelligent Energy Networks

Data analysis plays an important role in the development of intelligent energy networks (IENs). This article reviews and discusses the application of data analysis methods for energy big data. The installation of smart energy meters has provided a huge volume of data at different time resolutions, suggesting data analysis is required for clustering, demand forecasting, energy generation optimization, energy pricing, monitoring and diagnostics. The currently adopted data analysis technologies for IENs include pattern recognition, machine learning, data mining, statistics methods, etc. However, existing methods for data analysis cannot fully meet the requirements for processing the big data produced by the IENs and, therefore, more comprehensive data analysis methods are needed to handle the increasing amount of data and to mine more valuable information.