A generalised model of electrical energy demand from small household appliances

To this end, this paper presents a comparison of alternative strategies to stochastically model the temporal energy use of low-load appliances (meaning those whose annual energy share is individually small but significant when considered as a group). In particular, discrete-time Markov processes and survival analysis have been explored. Rigorous mathematical procedures, including cluster analysis, have been employed to identify a parsimonious strategy for the modelling of variations in energy demand over time of the four principle categories of small appliances: audio-visual, computing, kitchen and other small appliances. From this it is concluded that a model of the duration for which appliances survive in discrete states expressed as bins in fraction of maximum power demand performs best. This general solution may be integrated with relative ease with dynamic simulation programs, to complement existing models of relatively large load appliances for the comprehensive simulation of household appliance use.