Load Leveling and Energy-Saving Effects Evaluation of SOHO

Abstract

″The California energy crisis of 2000,″ like a bomb exploding in a crowd, alerted the world to the issues surrounding safe and secure energy supply. Increasing energy demand calls for an expanding supply system in order to realize a stable supply of energy. On the other hand, environmental problems such as global warming, the heat island phenomenon, resource depletion, and so on, call for a more efficient and energy-saving supply system. With these as a background, load leveling, one of the effects of DSM (Demand Side Management), is considered to be an effective method.
In this paper, 24-hour investigations on SOHO (Small Office Home Office), residential buildings and offices were conducted in the central Tokyo area. Based on the results, the monthly and hourly energy consumption characteristics of SOHO were ascertained. In addition, the dimensionless parameters, load leveling ratio r_l and energy saving rate r_s were defined. Using r_l, SOHO was proven to have profound effects on load leveling; and using r_s, the energy saving potential was evaluated quantitatively.