Load management strategies for electric utilities: a production cost simulation

Abstract

This paper deals with the development and application of a simulation model for analyzing strategies for managing the residential loads of electric utilitities. The basic components of the model are (1) a produc tion-cost model, which simulates daily operation of an electric power system, (2) a load model, which disaggregates system loads into appliance loads and other loads, and (3) a comparison model, which com pares the production costs and energy consumption needed to meet a particular load profile to the cor responding costs and energy consumption required for another load profile. The profiles in each pair define alternative ways of meeting the same demand. A method for disaggregating load profiles into appliance components is discussed and several alter native strategies for residential load management for a typical northeastern electric utility are formulated. The method is based on an analysis of the composition of electric loads for a number of classes of residen tial customers in the model utility system. The effect of alternative load management strategies on the entire residential loadcurve is determined by predicting the effects of these strategies on the specific appliance components of the loadcurve. The results of using the model to analyze alternative strategies for residential load management suggest that load management strategies in the residential sector, if adopted by utilities whose operating and load characteristics are similar to those of the sys tem modeled here, must take into account a wide variety of appliances to achieve significant changes in the total load profile. Moreover, the results also suggest that it is not easy to reduce costs significantly through new strategies for managing residential loads only and that, to be worthwhile, cost-reducing strategies will have to encompass many kinds of appliances,