Load profiling revisited: prosumer profiling for local energy markets

This chapter recalls the load profiling principles and the main differences that appear in applying load profiling to a smaller set of consumers with respect to the classical load profiling conducted at a large-scale level. In the prospect of application to local energy markets, the current load profiling setup is not fully adequate to support the challenging aspects due to the operation of prosumers with local generation and storage. The scopes of load profiling have to be revisited and updated to a more appropriate framework of prosumer profiling. The chapter points out the main scopes of prosumer profiling linked to local energy systems and markets, which include segmentation, forecasting, load balancing and demand response/flexibility. The load profiling principles are recalled, together with timing and amplitude aspects relevant to the creation of a comparable set of patterns, including normalisation issues and data alignment. Finally, the needs and opportunities referring to prosumer profiling in local energy markets are discussed, also considering multi-energy systems, the challenges concerning net power analysis, and the role of uncertainty in the definition of the prosumer profiles.