Load profile

A load profile will vary according to customer type (typical examples include residential, commercial and industrial), temperature and holiday seasons.

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.

In retail energy markets, supplier obligations are settled on an hourly or subhourly basis.

Load profiles can be determined by direct metering but on smaller devices such as distribution network transformers this is not routinely done.

Actual demand can be collected at strategic locations to perform more detailed load analysis; this is beneficial to both distribution and end-user customers looking for peak consumption.

Typical seasonal loads of electric utilities in Eastern New England Division in 1919. United States Geological Survey, 1921. Image courtesy of the National Museum of American History from Powering a Generation of Change
Graphs by hour of California's total electric load, the total load less solar and wind power (known as the duck curve ) and solar power output. Data is for October 22, 2016, a day when the wind power output was low and steady throughout the day.