Load modelling and simulation of household electricity consumption for the evaluation of demand-side management strategies

In order to evaluate the effectiveness of demand-side management techniques, mechanisms to simulate electricity consumption activities at a granular level are required. A bottom-up approach that uses a non-homogeneous Markov chain to model each appliance within each household is proposed. This model is time-aware and captures the variability of the transition probabilities as they change throughout the day. A simulator was developed based on this model and it was configured with data obtained from a household electricity survey conducted in the UK. The resultant load curves from a simulation of a thousand households are compared with the average hourly load reported in the survey, with significant similarities observed between the two. The same model can be parametrised to simulate hypothetical scenarios, such as a future where electric vehicles are more popular. The simulation framework also supports a plug-in mechanism through which demand control policies can be integrated into the system such that the effects and performance of demand-side management strategies can be evaluated.