Accepted Manuscript

Title: Modeling the Electrical Energy Consumption Profile for

Residential Buildings in Iran

Authors: Mohammad Sepehr, Reza Eghtedaei, Ali

Toolabimoghadam, Younes Noorollahi, Mohammad
Mohammadi

PII: S2210-6707(17)31666-9
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scs.2018.05.041
Reference: SCS 1119

To appear in:

Received date: 28-11-2017

Revised date: 20-3-2018
Accepted date: 23-5-2018

Please cite this article as: Sepehr M, Eghtedaei R, Toolabimoghadam A,

Noorollahi Y, Mohammadi M, Modeling the Electrical Energy Consumption
Profile for Residential Buildings in Iran, Sustainable Cities and Society (2018),
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scs.2018.05.041

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Modeling the Electrical Energy Consumption Profile for Residential
Buildings in Iran

Mohammad Sepehr1, Reza Eghtedaei2*, Ali Toolabimoghadam3, Younes Noorollahi4*,

Mohammad Mohammadi4

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1
Department of mechanical Engineering Payame Noor University (PNU), P.O. Box, 19395-3697,
Tehran, Iran
2
Industrial Engineering, Cyprus International University, Cyprus, Turkey

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3
Department of Power Electrical Engineering, University of Lorestan, Khorramabad, Iran
4
Department of Renewable Energies and Environment, Faculty of New Sciences and
Technologies, University of Tehran, Iran

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*Corresponding Author: Tel: +98 9122132885

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Email address: Noorollahi@ut.ac.ir
*Corresponding Author: Tel: +98 21 61116904

Email address: Reza.emu1972@yahoo.com N

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Highlights:
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 A bottom-up method is used to obtain the load profile of residential subscribers.


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The cumulative profile for 149 residential subscribers is modeled.

 The number of residents and the way of using different equipment is considered.
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 The obtained profile can be used for optimal planning and management of the network.
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Abstract

The development of smart grid, especially using the demand side management (DSM) programs
in order to control the consumption pattern and optimize the energy consumption is severely
growing. The consumers’ behavior intensively influences the resources and demand control in the

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power grid. Hence, proper understanding and modeling the behavioral pattern of the demand side
is a fundamental step for smart grid development and achieving sustainable energy systems. On
the other hand, the energy consumption information is necessary for planning and management of
distribution networks and the resources allocation. Thus, achieving a model to predict the energy
consumption in the level of subscribers is a basic step and it can be used for different studies. In
this paper, in order to study the random behavior of the residential subscribers, a bottom-up method
is developed with a one-minute resolution and with considering the number of residents and the

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way of using different equipment in order to obtain the consumption profile for the residential
subscribers. The results represent the effectiveness of the proposed model and compatibleness of
the obtained consumption profile with the real measured values.

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Keywords: Load modeling, Residential energy consumption, Bottom-up method, Coincidence
coefficient

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1. Introduction
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In the current century, scarcity of the fossil fuels for generating electricity as well as the increased
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population has led the energy to become one of the fundamental needs for development of the
human societies. On the other hand, increase in the awareness and concern about the environmental
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issues has led to an increased willingness to use the energy-efficient technologies. Therefore,
energy can be considered as the most important challenge for all countries in the world [1]. The
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main form of energy supply in the present century is the generation of electricity at large-scale
thermal power plants. This energy is driven by long transmission lines towards the consumers and
through power distribution systems is distributed among subscribers [2]. One of the main problems
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of the energy distribution utilities is the lack of sufficient information of the load models in
planning and performing different analyses in the network. In order to perform the reliable
calculations in the process of planning and management of the distribution networks, using an
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appropriate model for the subscribers’ load is required [3].

On the other hand, 40% of the world's primary energy is consumed in the buildings and these
buildings are also responsible for the one-third of total greenhouse gas emissions [4]. Therefore,
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there is great potential for improvement of energy efficiency in these buildings because the current
performance of buildings is far from an efficient performance. Therefore, an understanding of the
demand side behavior is crucial for the improvement of energy efficiency, smart grid development
and for achieving a sustainable urban system in the future [5].

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So far, different methods have been proposed in the literature in order to model and predict the
load profile and from a general view, they can be divided into three groups. The first group referred
to white-box model that is based on physical significance. The second group that is known as the
black-box model has a much simpler structure without physical parameters and is based on
empirical and statistical models. Finally, the third group can be called grey-box model, which is
based on both statistical methods and physical modeling techniques. The black-box models are
mainly based on the artificial intelligence [6, 7] and the methods based on the statistical data [8,

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9]. A review of the short-term predicting methods has been performed in [10]. A number of the
review studies about using the neural networks for the short-term prediction of the energy
consumption have been reported in [11, 12]. Similar studies about using the fuzzy logic and genetic

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algorithm can be found in [13, 14]. Moreover, different methods have been used for countries such
as Korea [15], China [16], and America [17]. The above methods usually are used when the

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statistical and experimental data from the subscribers and the energy consuming equipment are not
available. Nevertheless, in cases with the possibility of benefiting from the statistical and
experimental data, another group of methods can be used for modeling the load profiles.

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The bottom-up method is known as one of the most used methods in the literature that provide the

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possibility of studying the behavioral pattern of the consumers and the impacts of demand response
(DR) program [18]. Various studies have been performed in the field of modeling the electrical
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energy consumption by this method [19-22], and it has been proved that it is a reliable method for
simulating the electrical energy consumption. The main idea of the bottom-up method is to make
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the whole consumption profile from the primary componential profiles that can be a house or even
each of the household appliances. One of the benefits of this method is the possibility of studying
the impact of each of these components on the general consumption profile which can be very
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useful in the future studies about the subjects such as the smart grid and DSM.
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These cases can be obtained with investigating the behavioral pattern of using different equipment
in the house and energy consumption of this equipment [23] or by using the information in the
energy bills and specific questionnaires [22]. This method is based on the accurate statistical
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information that can have a high accuracy in analyzing the energy demand of buildings [22]. Some
of the studies have used such accurate information of the residents and house equipment to model
the electricity consumption [21, 24, 25]; while some other studies have used the information to
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extract the random models [26-31] that decreases the need of detailed and accurate information.
The main features of bottom-up methods have been classified in [32] and their most important
ones are as follows:
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 It is a simple and easy to implement the method.

 The macroeconomic and social factors can also be included in the model.
 It is very suitable to determine the way of energy consumption and the relevant parameters.
 It always is capable to be developed and ready for newer calculations and studies.

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  It does not require very detailed information and it can be used by using the information
obtained from bills and questionnaires.

Thus, the bottom-up is an appropriate method for obtaining the energy consumption profile,
because it includes the activity level of the consumers (whether when they are at home or not) and
their behavioral pattern (how the residents perform some specific activities) [27].

A comprehensive bottom-up-based model for obtaining residential consumers’ electricity

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consumption profile was introduced in [21]. In this model, detailed information was used for all
types of electrical appliances, and the starting probability of each of these appliances with regard
to the hourly, daily and seasonal effects was calculated. By comparing this probability with a

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random number between 0 and 1, the probable starting time of each of the appliances is cleared,
and total energy consumption is calculated by aggregating the energy consumption of each

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appliance in the operating period. The authors in [33] have used a bottom-up approach with
different resolutions to model the electrical load of a large group of household consumers. In this
paper, the effect of simulation time steps on the coincidence coefficient has been studied and it has

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been shown that with higher simulation resolution, the coincidence coefficient will be more
realistic. The behavior of consumers in the use of electrical energy in Singapore has been modeled
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in [34] in the framework of a bottom-up approach by excluding the effects of temperature, weekly,
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and seasonal variations. In this work, the starting possibility of appliances is also compared with a
random number to determine the time of the operation of a particular appliance. The authors in
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[35] used a bottom-up approach for modeling energy consumption in residential houses and
calculating load factor and coincidence coefficients. In this work, the random number generated
between 0 and 1 was used to determine the starting time of different equipment. The pattern of
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electricity consumption in Denmark is modeled based on a bottom-up approach in [36]. In this

model, different house groups, seasonal and daily changes, different simulation steps and a large
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group of home appliances are included. The authors in [37] have used an average level of activity
of each resident of the home to calculate the probability of using residents from a particular
appliance and the same process of [21] has been used to calculate the load profile of residential
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houses. Considering engineering methods and statistical methods as two main groups of bottom-
up methods, the efficiency of each of these methods in comparison with a hybrid model of these
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two methods has been studied in [38]. In this work, the behavior of residents of the home is
modeled by defining the percentage of people awake and their percentage of activity. The amount
of power consumption of each appliance is calculated taking into account this pattern of residents'
behavior, as well as the assumption of the percentage of appliance usage in defined time intervals.
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A common point in all investigated research is the generation of random numbers to determine the
starting time of the household appliances. In this method, the probabilistic pattern of appliances’
starting time is not well included and is not a precise way to determine the probability of equipment
activity. Since the appliances’ starting time during the day follows a probabilistic pattern,
therefore, a probability density function (PDF) can be used for modeling the probabilistic pattern
of each appliance. In this study, an efficient method for generating random numbers from these
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PDFs is used, which is based on the inverse cumulative density function (ICDF) graph. In this
study, a bottom-up approach is used for modeling the load profiles of the residential subscribers
and the details of implementing the proposed method are explained. Moreover, the cumulative
profile for 149 residential subscribers is obtained and compared with the measured profile.

2. Modeling the residential load profile

The energy consumption in a house depends on different factors such as the socio-economic

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situation, individual behaviors, type, size, and the location of the house, the number of residents,
the number and features of the different equipment, the environmental conditions, etc.

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Limited studies have been performed on the influential factors on the energy consumption profile
in the residential sector and they include different time scales such ad seasonal, daily, and hourly
scales. These studies represent that the study of the behavior of the daily load in an annual level is

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under the influence of external variables such as the temperature of the surrounding environment
and the daylight hours which follow a specific pattern in the year called as the seasonal effect.

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These studies have also concluded that the hourly behavior of the load profile is under the influence
of the activity level and the behavioral pattern of the subscribers. In the same regard, it can be said
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that the average consumption in the workdays is usually lower than the weekends; while the
consumption in the evenings and beginning of the night in the weekends is usually lower than the
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weekdays. In addition to the abovementioned factors, the energy consumption can be influenced
by the economic, social, and environmental factors. For example, the weather conditions, national
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and international events, popular television programs, economic crises and so on can influence the
energy consumption in micro and macro levels. In modeling, the impacts of such factors on the
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consumption profile should be possible to be modeled in order to obtain better and more realistic
results from the model. However, since the main purpose of the current study is to extract the
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energy consumption profile in a sample day and the cumulative group consumption profile of the
residential subscribers, hence, we ignore the impact of the above factors in this study.
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2.1 Mathematical Modeling

The daily load profile is created by repeating two loops. In the first loop, after choosing the
residential house type, the load profile related to each of the equipment of the house is created in
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the house. This is repeated for all equipment in the second loop and their consumption profile is
cumulatively added to the previous profiles so that finally the house’s consumption profile is
obtained. This procedure for load generation can be shown as Fig. 1. The list of equipment is
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different in different houses, hence, a coefficient entitles the saturation level is defined that
represents the possibility of the existence of a specific equipment in the house ( P s at ). For many
houses, this value is indeed changed into the same frequency of a certain equipment in the houses.
For example, in case of studying 100 residential houses, the value of 0.93 for the saturation level
indicates the existence of 93 number of that certain equipment in the 100 studied houses.

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Fig. 1. The bottom-up model architecture for load generation
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Assuming that the equipment list and the related saturation levels are known, in this step, we
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require a mathematical model for making the energy consumption profile. The main idea is that
when a certain equipment is turned on, its consumption is added to the house’s consumption from
the starting time to end of the operation cycle. When this process repeats for all appliances, the
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daily consumption profile will be obtained from the total consumption profiles of the equipment.
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Regarding the consumption patterns of the subscribers, a certain appliance can be turned on at
different times and whenever during the day. In fact, this part is one of the most important sections
of modeling. In this study, a starting possibility function ( P s tart ) is introduced which represents the
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possibility of the start of the equipment in each time step. P s tart gets a value between zero and one
and is obtained from a series of mathematical calculations. The starting time of appliances in the
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household is determined by P s tart . This is performed by generating a random number from PDF
related to P s tart . When an appliance is turned on and passes its operational cycle, it will be turned
off and search for the next starting time is repeated in the same way. The possibility function
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related to P s tart is calculable from the following equation [21]:

Ps ta r t ( A ,  t , h )  Ph o u r ( A , h )  f ( A , d )  Ps te p (  t )  Ps a t ( A ) (1)

In fact, P s tart depends on three variables: A the appliance, t the time step of calculations, and h

hours a day. Phour is the hourly possibility factor which models the activity level during a day for

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a certain equipment. The larger value for Phour means that this appliance has more chance to be
turned on and vice versa. f is the mean daily starting frequency of the appliance which represents
the average number of using a certain appliance in a day. P s te p is the scaling factor and scales the
possibilities base on t .

P s tart shows the starting probability of appliances in each time step. Unlike the previous works
which have used the fixed starting plan [39] or generating random values between 0 and 1 and

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comparing it with the P s tart value in order to determine the starting time of appliances [19], in this
study, PDF of the starting time and generating random numbers through ICDF graph has been

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used. Based on the idea presented in [21], many previous studies [27, 28, 36, 40, 41] have used
the same method to determine the starting time for the appliances. The starting possibility function
of each appliance (if normalized) can be considered as a PDF. In the method presented in [21], the

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starting probability is compared with a random number between 0 and 1, and if the starting
probability is greater than the random number, the equipment is started. When the cycle is

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complete, the equipment is turned off and the search begins to find the next starting time. Suppose
the random number is slightly smaller than thec probability at point A, as shown in Fig. 2.
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Therefore, since A is the first point that is larger than the random number, the corresponding time
at point A is chosen as the starting time of the equipment, and points such as C and D, which
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should be more likely to be left out. Also, between two points C and D, which have the same
probability, C (that has a time-priority) will be selected as the starting point, While D is equally
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valuable. Therefore, it can be said that this method is not a precise method and the density of larger
probabilities is ignored in this way. In this study, we have used a more precise method so that by
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obtaining cumulative density function (CDF) from PDF, this chart is used to select the starting
time. In this method, the random number is generated between 0 and 1 and is considered as the
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height in the CDF chart. In other words, a point is randomly selected on the horizontal axis of the
ICDF chart, where the height of this point on the ICDF chart is actually the point of the starting of
the corresponding equipment. Since the CDF graph has a higher slope, in points with higher
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probability density, the probability of choosing these points is much higher. With this method, the
probability density of points is considered and a more precise method is used to determine the
starting time of the appliances.
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Fig. 2. A schematic representation of starting time selection method N
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The Eq. (1) is applied to all appliances. With starting an appliance, the nominal power for this
appliance is calculated during the operational cycle and then the appliance is turned off so that the
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search for its next starting time will start. In this study, the standby power of the appliances has
been also considered. For example, refrigerator and television consume some power even when
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they are turned off and this power is calculated in this study. Therefore, the daily energy
consumption of a household can be calculated by adding standby energy consumption to cycle
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energy consumption as follows [21]:

n ap p

E d aily 
3 6 0 0 W s ta n d b y
  n 1
f W c y c le , n
 t c y c le , n
(2)
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k W h / d ay
3 .6  1 0
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where E d aily is the energy consumption per day (kWh), W s ta n d b y

is standby power consumption in
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watts, W c y c le
is nominal power consumption in watts, f is the mean starting frequency of each
appliance, t c y c le is the average cycle length for an appliance and n ap p is the total number of
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appliances. In fact, in the proposed method, the power consumption of each appliance in each
cycle is calculated, and these cycles are repeated on the number of mean daily starting frequencies
to get the daily energy of each appliance. For appliance with standby power, this power is added
to the daily energy consumption of the appliance. This process is repeated for all household
appliances to eventually bring the total daily energy consumption.

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 2.2 Case Study

In this study, the measured data of 149 residential subscribers of Galougah city in Iran was
employed in order to compare the proposed model of the load profile of the residential subscribers
with measured data. The data of the power consumption of these subscribers have been measured
for two months with half-hour steps, and the resulting curve is the daily average of these measured
data. To study the energy consumption profile of a group of household subscribers, in this study,
they have been divided into five classes according to the number of residents that can be observed

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in Table 1.

Table 1. Classification of the residential houses

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The number
Categories of houses of residents Frequency

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Single adult without children or Single retired adult 1 0.2
Single adult with children or Two adults without children or Two retired 2 0.24
Two adults with one child or Three adult 3 0.19

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Two adults with two children or Three adults with one child or four adults 4 0.28

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Two adults with three or more children or Three adults with two or more children ≥5 0.09
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Unlike the previous studies that have majorly used the random numbers to detect the classification
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of houses and allocate the specific equipment to each of them, in this study, the relevant PDF has
been used to select the houses’ group in the modeling process. PDF related to the houses
classification can be seen in the Fig. 3.
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0.3
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0.25

0.2
Frequency
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0.15

0.1
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0.05

0
1 2 3 4 ≥5
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Number of residents

Fig. 3. The probability density function related to the houses’ classification

The equipment allocated to each of the houses’ classes along with the standby nominal power and
the operational cycle of each of them can be seen in Table 2.

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Table 2. The list of appliances with the nominal power, standby power, and the duration of their operational cycle

Application Nominal wattage (w) Standby (w) Duration (hour)

Refrigerator 110 8.1 0.2
Freezer 110 8.1 0.2
Microwave oven 1500 0 0.0833
Coffee maker 1000 0 0.1

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Range oven 1050 8 0.2
Hair dryer 1600 0 0.1
TV 105 4 1.5

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TV2 83 4 1
Computer/ laptop 110 2.5 1

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Air conditioning 2200 0 2
Other occasional load 1000 0 1
Clothes washer 1200 0 1

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Lighting 120 0 0.5

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As it can be seen in Table 2, for appliances such as refrigerator, television, and computer, in
addition to the nominal power, some values have been allocated for the consumed standby power
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that will lead to more accurate results and analyses. It must be noted that the power consumption
of an appliance is not usually fixed during the operational cycle and depending on the way of
using, it has some changes. For example, a washing machine has stages like filling, washing,
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spinning, and drying in its operational cycle that each of them has specific power consumption.
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However, no accurate study has been performed to obtain the value of such consumptions and
entering them to the modeling and simulation; and here, it is assumed that the nominal power
consumption is an average of these consumptions during the operational cycle.
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The mentioned items in Table 2 are considered as a constant value for all houses. However, some
parameters such as the number of starting of an appliance and the saturation level for each group
of houses have different values. For example, these values for a group of houses with three
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residents have been shown in Table 3. The similar values have also been created for the other
groups but to meet the brief, we avoid from bringing all of these numbers in the table.
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Table 3. The frequency values of start and saturation level for different equipment in the third group houses

Application Daily starting frequency Saturation level

Refrigerator 40.5 1
Freezer 40.5 0.19
Microwave oven 4 1
Coffee maker 0.7 0.22

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 Range oven 0.38 0.44
Hair dryer 1.2 0.9
TV 1.45 1
TV2 0.12 0.22
Computer/ Laptop 2.3 0.92
Air conditioning 1.3 0.83
Other occasional load 0.66 1

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Clothes washer 0.41 1
Lighting 12 1

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The values less than one for the start frequency in Table 3, mean that the start of an appliance

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occurs every few days. For example, the value of 0.41 for washing machine indicates that this
equipment is usually started once every two days and it has not daily usage. In this study, PDF of
the starting time of each of appliance and generating random numbers from ICDF chart has been

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used. Examples of these PDFs for the third group houses can be seen in the Figs. 4-8.

TV
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0.09
0.08
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0.07
0.06
Frequency

0.05
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0.04
0.03
0.02
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0.01
0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24
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Time (hour)

Fig. 4. The probability density function of the TV for the third group houses
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 Refrigerator
0.045
0.04
0.035
0.03
Frequncy 0.025
0.02
0.015

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0.01
0.005
0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24

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Time (hour)

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Fig. 5. The probability density function of the refrigerator for the third group houses

Clothes washer

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0.09
0.08
0.07
0.06
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Frequncy

A
0.05
0.04
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0.03
0.02
0.01
0
D

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24
Time (hour)
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Fig. 6. The probability density function of clothes washer for the third group houses
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Hair driyer
0.14
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0.12
0.1
Frequency

0.08
0.06
A

0.04
0.02
0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24
Time (hour)

Fig. 7. The probability density function of hair dryer for the third group houses
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 Lighting
0.14
0.12
0.1

Frecuency
0.08
0.06
0.04

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0.02
0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24

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Time (hour)

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Fig. 8. The probability density function of lighting for the third group houses

As it can be seen, these figures properly display the activity level and the behavioral pattern of the

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residents in using each appliance. By choosing a random number from these distributions for
obtaining the starting time of these appliances, we will have a good similarity with the real pattern
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of using them. About the equipment like a refrigerator, a certain starting time is not prior to the
other times and its random starting time represents the random behaviors of residents in the use of
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the refrigerator.
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3. Simulation and Results

By using the mathematical models and the mentioned material in the previous sections, the
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proposed method has been implemented by MATLAB software and the following assumptions:
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1. In this study, the consumption profiles have only been simulated in a sample day of the
summer in 2016 and the impact of the seasonal effect and the difference between the
workdays and weekends has not been modeled.
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2. Specific equipment like a refrigerator that had previously been modeled with a certain
power consumption period, in this study has been modeled in the form of an equipment
with variable power consumption period. Actions like frequent opening and closing of the
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refrigerator door or making ice for cool water are evidence of changing in the regular
functional periods of the refrigerator and giving it a variable nature.
3. It has been supposed that the number of residents in the house can be a proper indicator of
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the behavioral pattern and the consumption amount of the household subscribers.
4. It has been supposed that DR programs have no effect on the pattern of household
customers’ consumption, and therefore the impact of different pricing programs on the
consumption profile is ignored.

The sample energy consumption profiles for the houses of the first to the fifth group can
respectively be seen in the Figs. 9-13.
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Fig. 9. The sample energy consumption profile for one of the houses of the first group

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A
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D
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Fig. 10. The sample energy consumption profile for one of the houses of the second group
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CC
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Fig. 11. The sample energy consumption profile for one of the houses of the third group

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Fig. 12. The sample energy consumption profile for one of the houses of the fourth group

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N
A
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D
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Fig. 13. The sample energy consumption profile for one of the houses of the fifth group
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The above figures are examples of the generated profiles by the proposed method for the sample
houses of each group. As shown in Figs. 9-13, the proposed model provides high-resolution results
for power consumption in different home groups, so that the power consumption can be obtained
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per minute for different homes. These figures indicate that the power consumption peak in all
groups occurs at night when all residents are usually at home. It is also observed that with
increasing number of residents, random behavior and the number and amount of power peaks are
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increased. Therefore, it can be said that the power curve of houses with more residents is more
irregular. Also, using the proposed model, the disaggregated power consumption of different
appliances can be evaluated.

To illustrate the positive features of the proposed model, a comparison of the results obtained in
this study with the results presented in [36], is shown in Fig. 14. This figure indicates only when
and for how long the appliances are used regardless of their power consumption. As can be seen

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in Fig. 14, a comparison can be made between the time of usage for different appliances in two
models. For equipment like the refrigerator a PDF has been used in the proposed model to
determine the starting time and it can be seen that a more realistic operation has been achieved for
the refrigerator. The operation of the refrigerator does not always have a regular cycle and, given
the consumer's behavior in using the refrigerator, this cycle can be irregular, which is well included
in the proposed model. It is also observed that in some cases, such as lighting, the proposed model
yields a more realistic performance. Also, the lighting of the house is divided into different parts

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to produce more accurate results. As can be seen, in the model presented in [36], lighting is active
in most hours of a day, which can not provide a realistic picture of the performance of occupants
without splitting the lighting for different parts of the house.

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Fig. 14. The time of usage for different appliances in a) proposed model b) presented model in [36]

The simulation in the one-minute steps leads to increase in the accuracy of the modeling and
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provides the possibility of studying the impacts of each appliance on the consumption profile of
the household or even a large group of the households. In this study, the consumption profiles for
149 subscribers connected to Shahid Qolami post were generated with the proposed method. The
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comparison of the modeled consumption profile with the measured profile can be seen in the Fig.
15. The data of the power consumption of these subscribers have been measured for two months
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with half-hour steps, and the resulting curve is the daily average of these measured data. As shown
in Fig. 15, in most hours of the day, the predicted profile is well matched to the measured profile.
However, in the time intervals like hours 12-16 and 21-23, the error created between the two graphs
increases. This is due to increased activities of residents and their incidental behaviors. In fact, the
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more inhabitants have random behavior, the more modeling and prediction of these behaviors
become difficult and the difference between the predicted model and the measured data increases.
However, it can be seen that the proposed model has a good track record of these random behaviors
and provides an adapted pattern of the demand behavioral model.

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Fig. 15. The cumulative consumption profile for the group of residential subscribers

The above profile is very valuable for the studies of planning and optimizing the distribution

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networks; because the display of the daily energy consumption profile of a certain group of the
subscribers is in the one-minute time steps. As it is concluded from this profile, the residential
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subscribers’ peak usually occur at different times and they are not coincident and unlike the needle
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and severe peaks in the individual household load profiles, the cumulative profile has smoother
behavior.
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4. Conclusion

In this paper, a bottom-up method with one-minute resolution has been used in order to investigate
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the random behavior of the residential subscribers. The number of residents in the house and the
way of using different equipment for obtaining the consumption profile for the residential
subscribers have been included in the proposed model. Five different groups have been considered
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for the residential houses based on the number of residents. The appliances allocated to each
household was determined by using the saturation level for each appliance. In addition, the activity
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level and the behavioral pattern of the residents in using the different equipment have been
included in the model by defining the probability function for the starting time of each appliance.
The starting time of each equipment was obtained randomly by using the relevant PDF which leads
to the more real and accurate results. By using the proposed bottom-up framework, the daily energy
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consumption profile was obtained for each of the residential household groups. The results show
that the power consumption peak in all groups occurs at night when all residents are usually at
home. It is also observed that with increasing number of residents, random behavior and the
number and amount of demand peaks are increased. Therefore, it can be said that the power curve
of houses with more residents is more irregular. Also, in this study, the daily energy consumption
profile of a group of the residential subscribers was modeled with one-minute resolution. The

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modeled consumption profile was compared with the measured profile for 149 subscribers. The
result shows that in most hours of the day, the predicted profile is well matched to the measured
profile. However, in some hours, the error created between the two graphs increases slightly. This
is due to increased activities of residents and their incidental behaviors. However, it can be seen
that the proposed model has a good track record of these random behaviors and provides an adapted
pattern of the demand behavioral model. For future work, the possible use of smart equipment and
growing platforms for the Internet of Things can be proposed.

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