Statistical analysis of residential demand behavior in Costa Rica: Creation of load profiles

The adoption of realistic load profiles is critical to carry out detailed distribution network studies. In Costa Rica, however, this information is scarce. To fill this gap, this paper presents results of a statistical analysis of the demand behavior of 367 residential customers monitored in the central region of Costa Rica as part of a nationwide power quality measurement campaign. Typical time-varying residential load profiles with a resolution of 10 min are created considering different power utilities, the type of day (weekday/weekend) and the daily energy consumption. The results highlight that residential demand changes from weekdays to weekends, although their daily energy consumption remains similar. They also show that the power factor varies throughout the day. Finally, this work demonstrates that power utilities can have very different residential demand profiles, which, in turn, highlights the importance of using the corresponding load profiles in future network studies.