Residential electric power systems: implications for distributed generation

Over the past two decades, the electricity market in the US has gone through major scrutiny and changes. Most recently the blackout of 2003, high oil prices (over $60/barrel) and restructuring and deregulation efforts have caused the electric power industry to take afresh look. In addition, energy sustainability has also become a major national concern. The residential and commercial power sectors use a large part of the total energy produced by electricity. With the advent of technologies like fuel cells, PV arrays, along with the advancement of storage systems, power electronics and other distributed generation technologies, it has been suggested that the future residential energy; infrastructure may be undergoing dramatic changes and customers may have some different options. This paper has two main objectives: (1) research on the types of loads utilized in residential applications and the characterization of the composite load characteristic, and (2) review the availability of cost effective small (3 kW range) state-of-the-art distributed generation power sources for such applications.