A cross-country model for end-use specific aggregated household load profiles

authored by: Marlon Schlemminger, Raphael Niepelt, Rolf Brendel
Abstract: End-use specific residential electricity load profiles are of interest for energy system modelling that requires future load curves or demand-side management. We present a model that is applicable across countries to predict consumption on a regional and national scale, using openly available data. The model uses neural networks (NNs) to correlate measured consumption from one country (United Kingdom) with weather data and daily profiles of a mix of human activity and device specific power profiles. We then use region-specific weather data and time-use surveys as input for the trained NNs to predict unscaled electric load profiles. The total power profile consists of the end-use household load profiles scaled with real consumption. We compare the model’s results with measured and independently simulated profiles of various European countries. The NNs achieve a mean absolute error compared with the average load of 6.5 to 33% for the test set. For Germany, the standard deviation between the simulation, the standard load profile H0, and measurements from the University of Applied Sciences Berlin is 26.5%. Our approach reduces the amount of input data required compared with existing models for modelling region-specific electricity load profiles considering end-uses and seasonality based on weather parameters. Hourly load profiles for 29 European countries based on four historical weather years are distributed under an open license.
Organisation(s): Solar Energy Section
External Organisation(s): Institute for Solar Energy Research (ISFH)
Type: Article
Journal: ENERGIES
Volume: 14
ISSN: 1996-1073
Publication date: 13.04.2021
Publication status: Published
Peer reviewed: Yes
ASJC Scopus subject areas: Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment, Fuel Technology, Energy Engineering and Power Technology, Energy (miscellaneous), Control and Optimization, Electrical and Electronic Engineering
Sustainable Development Goals: SDG 7 - Affordable and Clean Energy, SDG 12 - Responsible Consumption and Production
Electronic version(s): https://doi.org/10.3390/en14082167 (Access: Open)