Domestic Electricity Demand Research Articles

Determinants of Electricity Consumption and Volatility-Driven Innovative Roadmaps to One Hundred Percent Renewables for Top Consuming Nations in Africa

The determinants of providing affordable electricity for all in top energy-consuming African countries vary and are in line with the percentage of the current population with access to electricity and volatility in a country’s electric power system, but there is rare evidence of such research. This study categorizes Egypt–Algeria as a panel of countries with 100% access to electricity, and Nigeria–South Africa as otherwise, to investigate the causal relationship between domestic electricity demand, renewable electricity generation, population, and GDP. The study proposed and implemented a novel machine learning model for viable and volatility-driven pathways for renewable electric power transition up to 2030. Results from Pedroni cointegration analysis suggest no evidence of long-run relationships among the variables. Nonetheless, there exists a short-run unidirectional causal relationship from GDP to electricity consumption for Nigeria–South Africa; all except Egypt can achieve 100% access to green electricity. The implication is that, through radical renewable electricity generation innovations, countries can achieve renewable-dominated electric power systems despite expected disruptions from the coronavirus pandemic. For sustainable energy planning, countries aiming to achieve 100% renewables is possible due to the radical transition pathways since it takes into account the volatility.

Meeting energy needs of low-income Sub-Saharan households with a Partially Hybridised Solar Technology (PHST): Experimental performance evaluation based on simulated solar radiation and demand profiles

Renewable energy technologies for sustainable development are rapidly attracting attention across many disciplines despite technical, economic, and social barriers that limit application beyond the laboratory. This study proposes novel semi-automated and automated domestic hot water and electricity demand simulation experiments to evaluate the performance of a proof-of-concept prototype under simulated solar conditions. The prototype is a Partially Hybridised Solar Technology (PHST) which integrates photovoltaic (PV) and low-temperature solar thermal technology for low-cost electricity and domestic hot water supply. The domestic hot water and electrical demand profiles, and the solar radiation utilised during the study represent typical conditions of off-grid households in Sub-Saharan Africa. The prototype delivered a thermal energy supply potential of 2,073±75kJ per day at an average solar thermal conversion efficiency of 29.4±1.0%. The average yield of Direct Current (DC) electricity was 273 Wh per day at a corresponding PV module efficiency of 12.1% but depended on the type of charge controller. These results provide essential baselines for future computer modelling work and techno-economic predictions for Sub-Saharan Africa. The study has important future implications to test standards guiding laboratory-based evaluation of Solar Home Systems (SHSs) for electricity and domestic hot water.

Hydropower development along the major rivers basins in South Asia: benefits for Bangladesh

Electricity demand in Bangladesh is much higher than the electricity generation capacity of the country. The generation of electricity in Bangladesh mainly depends on natural gas that is a non-renewable resource. In 2017, the total electricity generation capacity was 13,621 MW of which natural gas contributed 62.62% of electricity generation. This is an unsustainable and alarming trend for Bangladesh, because after 15–20 years, natural gas reserves in the country will run out. The future electricity demand of Bangladesh in 2035 will be around 87,991 MW. Finding out how to fulfill the future electricity demand of Bangladesh and to what extent hydropower development along the Brahmaputra basin, Ganges basin and Myanmar could help meet the energy demand in Bangladesh are the main objectives of this research. Nepal, Bhutan, India, China, Myanmar all of these South Asian countries have huge hydropower potential. After meeting domestic electricity demand, these hydropower-rich countries could export excess electricity to neighboring countries like Bangladesh and India. The findings of this study suggest that by collaborating with all hydropower-rich South Asian countries, Bangladesh could meet its future electricity demand.

RENEWABLE ENERGY CERTIFICATES: APPLICATION POTENTIAL AND EFFIENCY

At the international level, the problem of the need to increase the contribution of renewable energy sources to domestic electricity demand is highly relevant. Since the production of renewable energy sources is quite expensive, many countries are developing various state and market incentives for investment in such energy sources. One such incentive is renewable energy certificates. The role of these certificates in the development of global renewable energy markets is invaluable. They not only help businesses achieve their goals in the field of renewable energy, but also reduce consumer payments for other renewable energy development programs. This article analyzes the current trends in the use of renewable energy certificates in the world and identifies the prospects for their use in the Russian Federation. In addition, the author of the article studied the issue of cost-effectiveness of renewable certificates. In order to assess the positive economic impact of the application of the certification system, calculations have been made to reduce the financial burden on participants in the Wholesale Electricity and Power Market by taking into account the funds received from the sale of these certificates to reduce payments by market participants to generators based on renewable sources under the program of agreements on the provision of capacity for generating objects operating on the basis of renewable energy sources, from the date of the start of supply of electric energy and of the last planned facility until the date of the last payment under the power capacity agreement. In addition, the author of the article studied the need for renewable energy certificates not only to obtain reliable data on the use of renewable energy sources, but also to create efficient electricity markets using renewable energy sources around the world.

Investigation of an innovative PV/T-ORC system using amorphous silicon cells and evacuated flat plate solar collectors

Solar-driven organic Rankine cycle (s-ORC) power generation is a promising technology with thermal storage for flexible operation to meet domestic variable electricity demand. A satisfactory efficiency of this technology can be obtained only at medium-to-high temperature, for which conventional flat plate and evacuated tube solar collectors are not suitable while solar concentrators cannot efficiently utilize diffuse solar radiation. Evacuated flat plate (EFP) collectors have recently been developed for efficient solar heat collection in the temperature range from 100 to 200°C, suitable for the ORC system. At present, the cost of EFP collectors is relatively high and will lead to a long payback period of the s-ORC system. To increase the annual power yield and reduce the payback time, inexpensive amorphous silicon (a-Si) solar cells are proposed to be integrated into the EFP collectors. It is the first time to put forward such photovoltaics/thermal (PV/T) design combining a-Si cells and EFP collectors. Compared with polycrystalline silicon cells (poly-Si), a-Si cells may have a higher electrical efficiency at a higher operating temperature due to the thermal annealing effect and are expected to have a long lifetime without encapsulation in the vacuum environment provided by the EFP collectors. In this study, the a-Si PV/T-ORC system using EFP collectors is investigated. Transient performance analysis of a-Si PV/T-ORC is given for the weather data of two selected days. A comparison is also made with a stand-alone poly-Si PV system, poly-Si PV/T-ORC system and s-ORC system with EFP collectors alone, respectively. The results indicate that for a typical day in July, the a-Si PV/T-ORC system has the highest daily power output of 0.822 kWh/m2, 102.3% more than the s-ORC system, 23.8% more than the stand-alone poly-Si PV system and 12% more than the poly-Si PV/T-ORC system, respectively.

Domestic hot water technology transition for solar thermal systems: An assessment for the urban areas of Maputo city, Mozambique

Solar thermal systems have been widely used to increase energy efficiency in residential sector, since it became one of the top priorities in many countries to mitigate the electricity shortage. Thus, for better deployment of solar thermal systems in the residential sector it is important to understand the household electricity consumption and energy usage for domestic hot water, though developing countries lack this type of accurate data.This work assesses a domestic hot water technology transition to solar thermal systems in the urban areas of developing countries, taking as case study Maputo city, in Mozambique.First, a survey was made to the domestic hot water needs, demand and usage, in 700 households, 28 neighbourhoods of Maputo, having identified the sources and technologies used to heat water and quantified the domestic hot water needs. Then, the impact on energy demand, cost and CO2 emissions of domestic hot water technology change to solar thermal systems was modelled as well as the impact on electricity grid.The survey results point that the predominant energy sources used for domestic hot water in urban areas are electricity and biomass with nearly 46% and 41% shares, respectively. Further, results show that the domestic hot water technology used depends on household income, being the electric water heaters mostly used in households with relatively high-income.The technology transition to solar thermal systems results in a positive impact on the grid by reducing up to 65.7% the domestic hot water electricity demand and 78.7% of the CO2 emissions, while the economic savings are up to 244 USD/household/year. However, peak load is expected to increase by 11%, suggesting the need for load management policy implementation.

Exploring the Effect of Energy Consumption on the Economic Growth of Albania

Albania is one of the most energy-resource abundant country, however faced with high domestic electricity demand. Moreover, the country is the largest crude oil producer in Europe. In this study, we investigate the following questions: (i) Is there a long-run association between energy consumption and output in Albania? (ii) What is the magnitude of energy effect in the short- and long-run on output in Albania? (iii) Which of the four hypotheses on the energy-growth nexus describes most appropriately the energy-growth nexus in the case of Albania? (iv) How do the results compare with those of earlier studies? Thus, the study examines the effect of energy consumption on the economic growth of Albania over the periods 1980 to 2014 using a Cobb-Douglas production function whilst controlling for multiple structural breaks. The short-run and long-run estimations are carried out using the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) bounds procedure. Causality is examined using the vector error correction method. Also, we conduct consistency and robustness checks using other regression methods. The results from the ARDL procedure indicate that the elasticity of income with respect to energy is 0.36. This implies that ceteris paribus, a 1% increase in energy consumption will increase output by 0.36%. The causality result supports the conservation hypothesis which implies that economic growth drives energy consumption, which is consistent with some of the earlier studies.

Potential for Rooftop-Mounted PV Power Generation to Meet Domestic Electrical Demand in Saudi Arabia: Case Study of a Villa in Jeddah

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) has a large solar and wind energy resource. Through its Vision 2030 to exploit such resources, KSA is planning to install 9.5 GW of renewable energy power generation systems by 2030, through a mix of solar and wind energy. The government is planning to invest 109 billion US$ over the next 20 years for solar energy. The focus will be on solar photovoltaic (PV) and concentrated solar technologies at a national level. So far, the electricity demand in KSA is almost entirely dependent on fossil fuels for generating power. This paper addresses the potential to utilize the solar radiation resource at a different scale and reduce the power demand from the grid, bringing collateral benefits for householders and the government alike. The work presents the results from monitoring the electricity consumption of two typical domestic buildings (villas) in Jeddah, KSA. The electricity consumption observations were associated with indoor environmental conditions to study how and when cooling demand affects final demand. The study investigated options to serve the observed demand profile of the villas with simulated power generation from arrays of PV panels installed on two buildings’ roofs. Finally, a model of dynamic solar radiation simulation was developed to assess the hourly electricity generation, and a cost-benefit analysis was conducted for different capacity PV systems scenarios. The results indicate that locally used rooftop PV output could reduce the household electrical demand from the grid by around 80% at the housing level and in combination with building refurbishment solutions, could result in additional energy savings. The economic analysis discusses the implications of a proposed feed-in tariff with the associated payback periods and ROI, as well as proposals for PV system deployment at a large scale on the roof of buildings in KSA.

Design of wind-PV based hybrid standalone energy systems for three sites in central India

The aim of this study is to design renewable energy based hybrid standalone systems to supply two rural and one urban sites of Madhya Pradesh state in India. These locations characterize different load profiles and wind and solar resources. The wind speed data measured at these sites and solar radiation data obtained from NASA are utilized to carry out theanalyses of these systems using HOMER Pro. These systems are designed to cater for domestic electricity demand of one rural site, domestic and agricultural demand of another rural site and residential load demand of staff quarters of an urban institution. The pattern of power consumption of the loads considered for these sites is suitably modelled and different combinations of hybrid systems are simulated to identify the optimal system based on least life cycle cost. Results show that the most economically feasible system to supply the load demand of the three sites is comprised of different combinations of renewable energy sources viz. only wind, wind- solar and only solar based systems. Each design also includes diesel generator back up and battery storage to ensure reliability of power supply and a converter to maintain the energy flow between ac and dc components.

Changes in the Structure of Electricity Generation in Poland in View of the EU Climate Package

The fuel mix of electricity generation in Poland is currently based predominantly on solid fuels. In addition, the generation power base is outdated. Many of the generating units are inefficient, uneconomic, and do not comply ecological standards, so they should be withdrawn from use in the near future. Poland, which consumes approximately 170 TWh of electricity, needs to determine the direction of the further development of the energy sector. The concepts of covering domestic demand for electricity were outlined by the government in the draft Energy Policy of Poland until 2040, where it was pointed out that the most important pillars of the Energy Policy should be the following: The energy security of the country, competitiveness, and the improvement of the energy efficiency of the economy, as well as limiting the impact on the environment. The article presents the current state of the Polish power sector and the directional changes planned by the government in the area of new capacities for the power industry. The authors present a critical evaluation of this document indicating the opportunities and threats in the area of its implementation. In contrast to many European countries, the Polish government is not considering coal phase-out.

WIPSO, PSO and GA Techniques to Locate UPFC Effectively in Power System to Improve Voltage Stability and Reduce Losses

The domestic and industrial demand for electricity has been increasing extensively making the power system more expensive. With this increases in demand for electricity, the losses also increase in demand for electricity the losses also increase from power generation to distribution Flexible alternating currents transmission system (FACTS) is used to maintain flexible operation of the power system from power generation level to the distribution level. The reliability of the network system can be enhanced by using FACTs devices in the power system more reliably, the inventions in the advanced power electronics devices can be implemented in the design of FACTs, serices, shunt, serices-shunt and shunt-shunt are some of the FACTs devices. One way to operate the power system with less power losses and improved system voltage profile is to use FACTs. Unified power flow controller (UPFC) is one of the serices-shunt FACTs systems. This paper throws light on how UPFC can be used to improve the voltage profile and reduce the installation cost of UPFC, the system loss, in the electrical power system. Analyst and soft computing methods such as Genetic Algorithm (GA), Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) and Weight Enhanced Particle Swarm Optimization (WIPSO) are used to determine ideal FACTs device settings and FACTs device place.

Balancing Europe: Can district heating affect the flexibility potential of Norwegian hydropower resources?

As Europe moves towards renewable energy, hydropower stands out as a renewable technology that can provide supply side flexibility through dispatchable electricity production. Several studies have investigated the flexibility hydropower can provide with a particular focus on the Nordic hydropower resources. Of all European countries, Norway has the largest hydropower resources and storage capacity. However, Norway also has a highly electrified heating sector, which means high electricity demand during winter when reservoirs are low. This paper uses EnergyPLAN to analyse how a shift from individual electric heating to district heating affects the flexibility the Norwegian energy system can provide to Europe. The analysis develops a 2015 reference scenario and two scenarios that introduce district heating based on biomass and heat pumps, respectively. Results show that district heating can decrease the maximum load on dammed hydropower facilities, thus freeing up capacity for potential export. Furthermore, the dammed hydropower facilities are able to balance the electricity demands in all hours of the year. However, the shift to district heating also increases forced export to drain reservoirs as domestic electricity demand is reduced. Also, the amount of import the system is able to handle is decreased under the modelled conditions.

Dynamic linear modeling of monthly electricity demand in Japan: Time variation of electricity conservation effect.

After the severe nuclear disaster in Fukushima, which was triggered by the Great East Japan earthquake in March 2011, nuclear power plants in Japan were temporarily shut down for mandatory inspections. To prevent large-scale blackouts, the Japanese government requested companies and households to reduce electricity consumption in summer and winter. It is reported that the domestic electricity demand had a structural decrease because of the electricity conservation effect (ECE). However, quantitative analysis of the ECE is not sufficient, and especially time variation of the ECE remains unclear. Understanding the ECE is important because Japan’s NDC (nationally determined contribution) assumes the reduction of CO2 emissions through aggressive energy conservation. In this study, we develop a time series model of monthly electricity demand in Japan and estimate time variation of the ECE. Moreover, we evaluate the impact of electricity conservation on CO2 emissions from power plants. The dynamic linear model is used to separate the ECE from the effects of other irrelevant factors (e.g. air temperature, economic production, and electricity price). Our result clearly shows that consumers’ electricity conservation behavior after the earthquake was not temporary but became established as a habit. Between March 2011 and March 2016, the ECE on industrial electricity demand ranged from 3.9% to 5.4%, and the ECE on residential electricity demand ranged from 1.6% to 7.6%. The ECE on the total electricity demand was estimated at 3.2%–6.0%. We found a seasonal pattern that the residential ECE in summer is higher than that in winter. The emissions increase from the shutdown of nuclear power plants was mitigated by electricity conservation. The emissions reduction effect was estimated at 0.82 MtCO2–2.26 MtCO2 (−4.5% on average compared to the zero-ECE case). The time-varying ECE is necessary for predicting Japan’s electricity demand and CO2 emissions after the earthquake.

The effect of urban density on energy consumption and solar gains: the study of Abu Dhabi’s neighborhood

The study shows that native-born neighbourhoods occupy a large portion of Abu Dhabi’s landscape, with 55.2% of the total land designated for development. Even though 18% of the total Abu Dhabi’s population lives in these neighbourhoods, they consume 47.8% of total domestic electricity demand in 2014, or almost six times more than the average per capita electricity consumption. This paper explores potential building energy reduction and solar heat gains by focusing on urban density of one typical Emirati neighbourhood in Abu Dhabi. Results show that building energy demand can be reduced by up to 10.5%, while solar heat gains can be reduced by more than 50%, depending on the urban density. Results in general reveal how urban density can affect solar heat gains and reduce building cooling demand for low-rise Emirati neighbourhoods.

HOW TO PINPOINT ENERGY-INEFFICIENT BUILDINGS? AN APPROACH BASED ON THE 3D CITY MODEL OF VIENNA

Abstract. This paper describes a methodology to assess the energy performance of residential buildings starting from the semantic 3D city model of Vienna. Space heating, domestic hot water and electricity demand are taken into account. The paper deals with aspects related to urban data modelling, with particular attention to the energy-related topics, and with issues related to interactive data exploration/visualisation and management from a plugin-free web-browser, e.g. based on Cesium, a WebGL virtual globe and map engine. While providing references to existing previous works, only some general and introductory information is given about the data collection, harmonisation and integration process necessary to create the CityGML-based 3D city model, which serves as the central information hub for the different applications developed and described more in detail in this paper. The work aims, among the rest, at developing urban decision making and operational optimisation software tools to minimise non-renewable energy use in cities. The results obtained so far, as well as some comments about their quality and limitations, are presented, together with the discussion regarding the next steps and some planned improvements.

국내 일별 최대전력 수요예측에 관한 연구

본 연구에서는 국내 일별 최대전력 수요예측의 문제를 고려한다. 수요예측을 위하여 본 연구에서는 다중 회귀모형에 기반한 예측 방법을 제안한다. 제안 모형은 직전기간 수요, 계절요인, 기상 정보 등 일별 최대전력 수요의 특성을 적절히 반영할 수 있는 독립변수들을 포함한다. 특히, 계절요인을 고려하기 위하여, 2개월 단위로 계절을 구분하고, 계절에 따른 기상 정보를 반영하기 위하여 계절 변수와 기상 정보 변수의 곱으로 이루어진 2차항을 독립변수로 포함시킨 모형을 제안한다. 제안 모형의 성능을 검증하기 위하여 기존 연구 결과와 비교 실험을 수행하였고, 평균절대백분율오차(MAPE)를 측정하였다. 비교 실험 결과, 제안 예측 방법이 모든 경우에 더 개선된 예측 성능을 보임을 확인할 수 있었다.

Why Electricity Demand Is Highly Income-Elastic in Spain: A Cross-Country Comparison Based on an Index-Decomposition Analysis

Since 1990, Spain has had one of the highest elasticities of electricity demand in the European Union. We provide an in-depth analysis into the causes of this high elasticity, and we examine how these same causes influence electricity demand in other European countries. To this end, we present an index-decomposition analysis of growth in electricity demand which allows us to identify three key factors in the relationship between gross domestic product (GDP) and electricity demand: (i) structural change; (ii) GDP growth; and (iii) intensity of electricity use. Our findings show that the main differences in electricity demand elasticities across countries and time are accounted for by the fast convergence in residential per capita electricity consumption. This convergence has almost concluded, and we expect the Spanish energy demand elasticity to converge to European standards in the near future.

A look at the response of households to time-of-use electricity pricing in Saudi Arabia and its impact on the wider economy

Households in Saudi Arabia account for about half of domestic electricity demand. This high level of consumption is partly due to historically low prices. These prices have also been flat throughout the day. Policymakers are exploring different pricing policies to help reduce this share. Time-of-use (TOU) pricing is one such option. This paper assesses the potential effects TOU pricing will have on households and the wider economy.We quantify how households may react to a price change by focusing on two of the biggest electricity-consuming household items: appliances and air-conditioners. Price response features that deal with the usage of these items are incorporated in a modeling framework that we have developed. Based on an assumed TOU price that the power utility may charge during peak summer hours, the main findings of our analysis for the year 2011 are:

A disaggregated, probabilistic, high resolution method for assessment of domestic occupancy and electrical demand

An integrated domestic occupancy and demand model with a 1-min resolution has been developed which better captures the influence of different occupant behaviours than previous models. The occupancy model includes the fundamental link between occupancy and demand, and differentiates between different types and sizes of households. In particular, the likelihood of daytime occupancy is captured by age and employment differentiators. A novel method for identifying appliance use events and linking use to an occupancy profile has been developed that accounts for household specific appliance usage using an event-based approach calibrated directly from measured data. The method has been shown to perform better than both per-timestep probability models and models calibrated from time-use survey activity diaries. To further capture individual household behaviours, the demand model incorporates additional factoring to account for income and random behavioural influences. Whilst improving differentiation of individual household energy usage, due to limitations in the available data, the model incorporates some occupancy and use behaviour factors that are a composite of multiple households, leading to some behaviour averaging in the model output; consequently the model is best employed for energy demand assessment of multiple households.

The status of primary fossil energy resources in Turkey

ABSTRACTThe lack of primary fossil energy resources in Turkey is an important problem. Turkey is one of the top 25 nations in energy consumption. Its domestic electricity demand is increasing by 6% per year. Turkey is an import-dependent country because the production of natural gas and oil in Turkey is very low. Turkey must import 93% of its oil needs and 99% of its natural gas requirements. The aim of this study is to investigate the current use and the available potential of primary fossil energy resources in Turkey.