Characterization of the Hourly Load Curve in the Colombian Electricity Market

This paper analyzes the hourly load curve of the total electricity demand using the most detailed information available for the Colombian electricity market. Our findings are the following: first, regulated and non-regulated markets have very different load curves; for the regulated market, the load curve has pronounced peaks and valleys while for the non-regulated market the load curve is approximately flat. All economic sectors have a flat load curve, except those whose activity is related to an hourly schedule as agriculture, livestock, fishing or commerce. Second, load factor has changed from 0.70 to 0.82; this variation is explained for the corresponding growth of the load factor in the regulated market; the non-regulated market has an approximately constant load factor. And third, cluster analysis indicates that demand can be grouped in two classes of typical days: the first cluster correspond to Sundays and holidays and the second cluster to the other days.