Activities related with electricity consumption in the Spanish residential sector: Variations between days of the week, Autonomous Communities and size of towns

•Active occupancy profiles of Spanish dwellings are analyzed and modeled from Time Use Survey data.•Daily profiles of activities implemented at home related to the use of appliances were obtained.•Variations between days of the week, Autonomous Communities and size of towns are considered.•Results can be used to model domestic energy consumption.•Manual and incentive-based DSM programes are considered the most suitable for Spanish dwellings.

Nowadays the electricity consumption in the residential sector attracts policy and research efforts, in order to propose saving strategies and to attain a better balance between production and consumption, by integrating renewable energy production and proposing suitable demand side management methods. To achieve these objectives it is essential to have real information about household electricity demand profiles in dwellings, highly correlated, among other aspects, with the active occupancy of the homes and to the personal activities carried out in homes by their occupants. Due to the limited information related to these aspects, in this paper, behavioral factors of the Spanish household residents, related to the electricity consumption, have been determined and analyzed, based on data from the Spanish Time Use Surveys, differentiating among the Autonomous Communities and the size of municipalities, or the type of days, weekdays or weekends. Activities involving a larger number of houses are those related to Personal Care, Food Preparation and Washing Dishes. The activity of greater realization at homes is Watching TV, which together with Using PC, results in a high energy demand in an aggregate level. Results obtained enable identify prospective targets for load control and for efficiency energy reduction recommendations to residential consumers.