Future Global Electricity Demand Load Curves

Abstract

The rapidly increasing electricity demand and the expected increase in the contribution of variable renewable energy sources (VRE; mainly wind and solar energy) raise the need for looking at the characteristics of long-term demand variations. Furthermore, demand changes (e.g., increasing  penetration of electric vehicles) could affect the shape of future load curves. However, long-term energy models often assume a constant load shape. In this research, we determine the shape of future electricity demand load curves with a global scope for long-term exploratory scenarios analysis within integrated assessment models (IAM). This was done by using empirical data on daily demand patterns of different end-uses and aggregating them with end-use annual electricity demand data from the IMAGE IAM. Our regional hourly aggregated patterns modelled vary over the years by projected variation of temperature and contribution variations of the different sectors to total electricity demand. Results under the shared socioeconomic pathway two show that future load curves depict low changes over time and a large sensitivity to load variations from electric vehicle daily charging patterns.

Keywords: Model, Electricity demand, IAM, VRE, SSP, scenarios