Potential future changes to residential electricity load profiles – findings from the GridSpy dataset

Abstract

In this report we have investigated the effect a number of important new household appliances and changing patterns of device use may have on daily residential demand profiles. The results show a significant effect at high levels of penetration of new technologies. For example, high penetration of PV and EV both increase the daily variation of aggregated demand by 2 kW per house. It is critical that the potential impact of these technologies is taken into account in planning future power grid infrastructure. Demand flexibility measures could play an important role in avoiding the need to deploy new infrastructure to handle increasing device use. Energy storage such as stand-alone batteries, smart hot water cylinders, and also vehicle-to-grid scenarios with EVs could play a significant role in this.

This investigation was based on a restricted data set that was not representative of the whole of New Zealand [22]. The results that are presented should be considered with this in mind. Future analysis of demand profiles would benefit from a data set specifically designed to provide a representative coverage of New Zealand’s diverse housing stock. More investigation of the potential role of energy storage is also necessary, due to its potentially significant affect. The focus of this work has been winter and summer daily averages; further investigation of the power variations within a day, from, for example, sudden cloud cover of a PV panel, would also be of value.