Peak load

In electrical engineering, a load profile is a graph of the variation in the electrical load versus time. A load profile will vary according to customer type (typical examples include residential, commercial and industrial), temperature and holiday seasons. Power producers use this information to plan how much electricity they will need to make available at any given time. Teletraffic engineering uses a similar load curve.

In a power system, a load curve or load profile is a chart illustrating the variation in demand/electrical load over a specific time. Generation companies use this information to plan how much power they will need to generate at any given time. A load duration curve is similar to a load curve. The information is the same but is presented in a different form. These curves are useful in the selection of generator units for supplying electricity.

In an electricity distribution grid, the load profile of electricity usage is important to the efficiency and reliability of power transmission. The power transformer or battery-to-grid are critical aspects of power distribution and sizing and modelling of batteries or transformers depends on the load profile. The factory specification of transformers for the optimization of load losses versus no-load losses is dependent directly on the characteristics of the load profile that the transformer is expected to be subjected to. This includes such characteristics as average load factor, diversity factor, utilization factor, and demand factor, which can all be calculated based on a given load profile.

On the power market so-called EFA blocks are used to specify the traded forward contract (on the delivery of a certain amount of electrical energy at a certain time.

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