electrical engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems which use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

, a load profile is a graph of the variation in the

electrical load An electrical load is an electrical component or portion of a circuit that consumes (active) electric power, such as electrical appliances and lights inside the home. The term may also refer to the power consumed by a circuit. This is opposed ...

versus time. A load profile will vary according to customer type (typical examples include residential, commercial and industrial), temperature and holiday seasons. Power producers use this information to plan how much electricity they will need to make available at any given time.

Teletraffic engineering Teletraffic engineering, telecommunications traffic engineering, or just traffic engineering when in context, is the application of transportation traffic engineering theory to telecommunications. Teletraffic engineers use their knowledge of stat ...

uses a similar load curve.

Power generation

In a power system, a load curve or load profile is a chart illustrating the variation in demand/electrical load over a specific time. Generation companies use this information to plan how much power they will need to generate at any given time. A load duration curve is similar to a load curve. The information is the same but is presented in a different form. These curves are useful in the selection of generator units for supplying electricity.

Electricity distribution

In an

electricity distribution Electric power distribution is the final stage in the delivery of electric power; it carries electricity from the transmission system to individual consumers. Distribution substations connect to the transmission system and lower the transmissi ...

grid Grid, The Grid, or GRID may refer to: Common usage * Cattle grid or stock grid, a type of obstacle is used to prevent livestock from crossing the road * Grid reference, used to define a location on a map Arts, entertainment, and media * News ...

, the load profile of electricity usage is important to the efficiency and reliability of power transmission. The power

transformer A transformer is a passive component that transfers electrical energy from one electrical circuit to another circuit, or multiple circuits. A varying current in any coil of the transformer produces a varying magnetic flux in the transformer' ...

battery-to-grid A grid-tied electrical system, also called ''tied to grid'' or ''grid tie system'', is a semi-autonomous electrical generation or grid energy storage system which links to the mains to feed excess capacity back to the local mains electrical grid ...

are critical aspects of power distribution and sizing and modelling of batteries or transformers depends on the load profile. The factory specification of transformers for the optimization of load losses versus no-load losses is dependent directly on the characteristics of the load profile that the transformer is expected to be subjected to. This includes such characteristics as average load factor,

diversity factor In the context of electricity, the diversity factor is the ratio of the sum of the individual non-coincident maximum loads of various subdivisions of the system to the maximum demand of the complete system. : f_\text = \frac The diversity factor ...

, utilization factor, and demand factor, which can all be calculated based on a given load profile. On the power market so-called EFA blocks are used to specify the

trade Trade involves the transfer of goods and services from one person or entity to another, often in exchange for money. Economists refer to a system or network that allows trade as a market. An early form of trade, barter, saw the direct exc ...

forward contract In finance, a forward contract or simply a forward is a non-standardized contract between two parties to buy or sell an asset at a specified future time at a price agreed on at the time of conclusion of the contract, making it a type of derivat ...

on the delivery of a certain amount of electrical energy at a certain time.

Retail energy markets

In retail energy markets, supplier obligations are settled on an hourly or subhourly basis. For most customers, consumption is measured on a monthly basis, based on meter reading schedules. Load profiles are used to convert the monthly consumption data into estimates of hourly or subhourly consumption in order to determine the supplier obligation. For each hour, these estimates are aggregated for all customers of an energy supplier, and the aggregate amount is used in market settlement calculations as the total demand that must be covered by the supplier.

Calculating and recording load profiles

Load profiles can be determined by direct metering but on smaller devices such as distribution network transformers this is not routinely done. Instead a load profile can be inferred from customer billing or other data. An example of a practical calculation used by utilities is using a transformer's maximum demand reading and taking into account the known number of each customer type supplied by these transformers. This process is called load research. Actual demand can be collected at strategic locations to perform more detailed load analysis; this is beneficial to both distribution and end-user customers looking for peak consumption.

Smart grid A smart grid is an electrical grid which includes a variety of operation and energy measures including: *Advanced metering infrastructure (of which smart meters are a generic name for any utility side device even if it is more capable e.g. a f ...

meters The metre (British spelling) or meter (American spelling; see spelling differences) (from the French unit , from the Greek noun , "measure"), symbol m, is the primary unit of length in the International System of Units (SI), though its pr ...

, utility meter load profilers, data logging sub-meters and portable data loggers are designed to accomplish this task by recording readings at a set interval.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Load Profile Electronic engineering Electric power Electrical systems

Power generation

Electricity distribution

Retail energy markets

Calculating and recording load profiles

See also

References