A stochastic approach to determine the energy consumption and synthetic load profiles of different customer types of rural communities

Abstract

The electricity demand is highly stochastic and unpredictable. This is due to the fact that it is significantly impacted by a number of factors, including the type of load, weather, time of day, seasonality, economic limitations, customers’ way of living, and other randomness factors. An accurate load model is one of the main inputs for the design of an economical and reliable renewable-based rural electrification system for rural communities and demand management systems. This paper presents a generic methodology for determining a rural community's energy consumption load profile, which is used to determine the most cost-effective size of renewable energy sources for rural electrification purposes. To determine the load profile parameters, such as the types of appliances used, their functioning times, functioning windows, and expected minimum and maximum cycle time, a field survey was conducted in four rural electrified Ethiopian villages. Since the survey findings will not fully explain the stochastic nature of the load profile, the load parameters are randomly generated, and a bottom-up approach is used to estimate the rural community's energy usage. In this study, household loads, public institution loads, business loads, and small industrial loads are the main consumer types taken into account. These loads are classified according to their energy usage as weekdays, weekends, and national and religious holidays. A MATLAB program is developed and implemented to obtain the load profiles of different customer groups. The results of this study are assessed in accordance with the multi-tier criterion and verified through the use of the well-known software HOMER Pro- and LoadProGen.

Keywords

• Load profile
• Rural electrification
• Renewable energy
• Stochastic bottom-up approach
• Energy demand
• Developing countries