Search

The electricity drawn by appliances and lighting represents a significant fraction of the total energy used in residential buildings. As construction techniques improve and as building regulations become more stringent, it is expected that the relative significance of these non-HVAC electrical loads will grow. Not only is the annual energy consumption of non-HVAC electrical loads of growing importance, their temporal distribution influences the operation of energy conversion equipment within the building and in the electrical supply network. This work provides new measured data on the electrical consumption of a sample of 12 Canadian houses. Measurements at 1-min intervals were taken of whole-house electricity draws, as well as the draws of individual devices, including the furnace, air-conditioner, range/cooker, clothes dryer, dishwasher, and domestic hot water heater. The annual consumption patterns of the 12 houses were found to range widely. Furthermore, daily variations in the temporal distribution of electrical loads of each house were found to be significant. The probability distribution of some of the measured data was compared with previously developed synthetically derived non-HVAC electric load profiles, and it was found that the latter do not adequately capture either the temporal variability nor the variation between households observed in the measurements.

Combined heat and power on a residential scale, also known as micro-cogeneration, is currently gaining traction as an energy savings practice. The configuration of micro-cogeneration systems is highly variable, as local climate, energy supply, energy market and the feasibility of including renewable type components such as wind turbines or photovoltaic panels are all factors. Large-scale lithium ion batteries for electrical storage in this context can provide cost savings, operational flexibility, and reduced stress on the distribution grid as well as a degree of contingency for installations relying upon unsteady renewables. Concurrently, significant advances in component materials used to make lithium ion cells offer performance improvements in terms of power output, energy capacity, robustness and longevity, thereby enhancing their prospective utility in residential micro-cogeneration installations. The present study evaluates annual residential energy use for a typical Canadian home connected to the electrical grid, equipped with a micro-cogeneration system consisting of a Stirling engine for supplying heat and power, coupled with a nominal 2 kW/6 kW h lithium ion battery. Two novel battery cathode chemistries, one a new Li–NCA material, the other a high voltage Ni-doped lithium manganate, are compared in the residential micro-cogeneration context with a system equipped with the presently conventional LiMn2O4 spinel-type battery. Fil: Darcovich, K.. National Research Council of Canada; Canadá Fil: Henquín, Eduardo Rubén. National Research Council of Canada; Canadá. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Santa Fe. Instituto de Desarrollo y Diseño (i); Argentina Fil: Kenney, B.. National Research Council of Canada; Canadá Fil: Davidson, I. J.. National Research Council of Canada; Canadá Fil: Saldanha, N.. Carleton University; Canadá Fil: Beausoleil Morrison, I.. Carleton University; Canadá

The residential sector uses nearly 30% of all electricity in Canada, and, it is important to know how this energy is being used, so that savings may be identified and realised. We propose a method that can be applied to hourly whole-house electrical energy data to partially disaggregate total household electricity use into five load categories/parameters (base load, activity load, heating season gradient, cooling season gradient and lowest external temperature at which air-conditioning is used). This paper develops the proposed method, and verifies it using high-resolution end-use data from twelve households with known characteristics. We then apply the method to hourly whole-house (smart meter) data from 327 households in Ontario. The roll-out of smart (advanced) metering infrastructure in many countries will make hourly whole-house data abundant, and we propose that this method could be widely applied by utilities to target their demand-side management programs towards households more likely to provide benefits, thus increasing the cost-effectiveness of such programs.