A Case Study on the Energy Consumption Behaviour in Western Victoria for Implementing Demand Flexibility

The distributed and intermittent nature of renewable energy sources significantly affects the reliability and security of electric power systems. Demand flexibility could help to achieve affordable, secure, and reliable electric energy. However, erroneous, missing, and false energy consumption data create challenges in getting accurate flexibility assessment a. This paper presents a case study on the energy consumption behaviour in Western Victoria (Australia) for implementing demand flexibility using statistical data analysis methodology. Energy generation and consumption data of the Western Victorian region including the data of residential, commercial, public, and dairy farms as well as aggregated connection points, such as transformers, are collected for this study. Outliers, erroneous and missing data are identified by implementing statistical methods. The incorrect/missing data are corrected/filled in using historical data to obtain a clean data set for energy profiling. The changes in energy efficiency index (EEI) shows the benefits of individual consumer after implementing demand response. The characteristics of residential and industrial profiles show that high demand in the evening can be compensated by the low demand in the industry at that time period. Besides, high solar generation during the day can meet the high demand in the industry, which will help flatten the overall load profile of the network. Also, it is shown that loads like the council conference and exhibition centre require a higher demand for a shorter period with the potential to install a combination of PV and battery system to decrease their reliance on the grid supply.