A scalable smart meter data generator using spark

Abstract

Today, smart meters are being used worldwide. As a matter of fact smart meters produce large volumes of data. Thus, it is important for smart meter data management and analytics systems to process petabytes of data. Benchmarking and testing of these systems require scalable data, however, it can be challenging to get large data sets due to privacy and/or data protection regulations. This paper presents a scalable smart meter data generator using Spark that can generate realistic data sets. The proposed data generator is based on a supervised machine learning method that can generate data of any size by using small data sets as seed. Moreover, the generator can preserve the characteristics of data with respect to consumption patterns and user groups. This paper evaluates the proposed data generator in a cluster based environment in order to validate its effectiveness and scalability.