In this step, Energy Demand profiles for each Hub are specified. Multiple energy demand profiles for any given Hub can be defined.  A demand profile for a hub must be specified with a time resolution of 1 hour and a time span of 1 year (365 days), consisting of 8760 values.  Demand profiles are specified in kW (kWh/h). 

→ Add New: Select the Hub where the demand profile is located and the Energy Carrier corresponding to the demand.  Optionally, a Name for the demand profile (e.g. space heating demand) can be specified.  Optionally, a Demand Sale Price can also be specified, which corresponds to the income generated by the satisfaction of 1 kWh of the corresponding demand, i.e. the sale of the respective energy carrier to the customer.  The Demand Sale Price is specified in CHF/kWh.

Tip: Multiple energy demand profiles for any given Hub – Energy Carrier combination may be specified. In execution of the optimization, all demand profiles for a given Hub – Energy Carrier combination will be aggregated.

The energy demand profiles for a site may be specified in 3 ways:

→ Generate Profile: Generate standard hourly energy demand profiles for buildings of different types.  After clicking on the Generate Profile button, a box will open where you can specify the parameters of the profile to be generated. You must select:

  1. Demand Type (e.g. Electricity, Hot Water)

  2. Building Use (e.g. Residential, Office)

  3. Building Age or Standard (kWh/m2 associated)

  4. Energy Reference Area (m2)

Alternatively to specifying the Building Age or Standard, you can specify the Energy Intensity (kWh/m2) or Total Annual Demand (kWh/year) directly.  After making the necessary parameter selections, a statistical summary of the demand profile is shown below, including the source of the data used to generate the profile.  By clicking Next in the box, the profile is generated and you are given the option to add the profile to your scenario.

 

→ Upload New: An energy demand profile may be specified in a XLSX file and uploaded.  The profile should be specified in kWh and for every hour of the year from the 1st of January to the 31st of December. The maximum size of the XLSX file is 2 MB. The file should consist of a single sheet, containing 2 columns, no header, and exactly 8760 rows. The 1st column should contain incrementing integers (from 1 to 8760).  The 2nd column should contain the values corresponding to the hourly energy demand in kWh, as shown below, (TEMPLATE PROFILE XLSX):

→ Select Saved: Always when uploading or generating a profile, you are given the option to Save the profile for future use.  Using Select Saved, you can load an energy profile you have saved in the past.

 

→ Energy Profile Peak Shaving

Turn on the toggle Energy Profile Peak Shaving to apply peak shaving in your selected energy demand profile. Write in Numbers of profiles aggregated the number of different profile units aggregated which represent the single profile just selected above. E.g. Number of households, number of buildings, etc.

For each Energy Demand included in the scenario, Hourly energy demand profiles and Load duration curves can be visualized:

AI Clustered profiles

When executing the optimization by Sympheny engine, AI clustered Energy Demand profiles by typical days are created to improve the performance of the optimization. These profiles have similar load duration curve as the original profile included by the user. The peak of each of the Energy Carrier per Hub, the peak of each of the Energy Carriers (in all Hubs) and the peak of all the Energy Carriers aggregated is also included. A comparison of these profiles is plotted in Result Dashboards (plot 10c).

On-site Resource profiles are also transformed to AI Clustered profiles.