NZ GREEN Grid Household Electricity Demand Data: EECA Data Analysis (Part C) Upscaling Advice Report v1.0

Abstract

This report introduces three potential upscaling methods which can be used to produce national level demand estimates from the GREEN Grid household electricity demand data. The first is a simple multiplication method used to estimate overall residential electricity consumption for comparison to the GXP level data used in Part B. The second is a simple proportionate upscaling method used to estimate energy demand for heat pumps in New Zealand. The third is a more complex re-weighting approach that uses iterative proportional fitting to re-weight households on multiple dimensions to match known Census distributions. We show that small and biased samples such as GREEN Grid can be used to create scenarios of future demand at national, regional or small area (neighbourhood) levels. Where the sample comprises a set of households specifically chosen to represent ‘the future’, methods such as IPF can be used to develop plausible estimates of their future demand profiles. Where it does not, specific household attributes can be changed in specific households in the sample and the consequences upscaled to local, regional or national estimates - an approach known as spatial microsimulation. We would suggest that modelling a range of future scenarios using the GREEN Grid sample could take this approach and we have noted a number of potential avenues.