Online Hourly Loads and Energy Prices

If you have already established an account to access hourly loads,
click on the "Hourly Load Analysis" button to proceed.

Preview of an Hourly Loads Session

The remainder of this page describes user inputs and online hourly load results.

What Are Hourly Loads for a "Site"?
Hourly loads are provided for a "site' defined by a business type, size (floor space or size category), zip code, and utility. One of the advantages of defining sites in this way is that users can develop loads for a variety of segments within a site definition for no additional cost. For instance, users can change operating hours characteristics (e.g., open on Saturday, Sunday), fuel choices (e.g., electric versus natural gas space heat) and equipment characteristics to develop hourly loads for variations of the basic site. Furthermore, hourly loads for the site can be calibrated to monthly kWh, kW and electricity bills. A site's hourly loads can represent:

A market segment
A "prototype" customer
An actual customer

Rerunning Hourly Loads for a Site
As indicated in the previous section, users can reaccess a site to review hourly loads or to develop loads with alternative operating or user characteristics. Hourly loads analysis may be conducted an unlimited number of times for six months from the time of the initial site specification.

User Inputs
The hourly loads user input includes both required and optional inputs. The following input information is collected for each site.

Required inputs:
business type, site zip code, utility service area, business size (square feet), or
market segment (small office, medium office, ...)
Optional inputs: fuel and equipment characteristics for space heat, air conditioning, water heating and process uses (if the site is industrial), monthly electric kWh and peak kW use and prices, monthly natural gas and oil use and prices and operating hours for weekdays, Saturdays and Sundays.

The software provides typical values for any optional inputs that are not provided by the user.

Summary Results - Day Type/Month
Hourly loads are available at two levels of detail: day type/month and full year 8,760 Hours. The following information is provided online in both chart and table form for the day type/month option:

Monthly kWh use for twelve months
Monthly peak kW for twelve months
Average month day-type 24 Hour load profiles for four day types (week day, peak day, Saturday, Sunday) for twelve months

Online charts and tables provided with the day type/month option are shown below.

Detailed Results - Full Year 8,760 hours
Users who opt for the full year 8,760 hourly loads results receive all of the day type/month results identified above and whole-building 8760 hourly loads. (Additional end use detail including space heating, electric air conditioning, water heating and "all other" electric hourly loads is available as an extended option. Space heating and water heating loads are provided as electric, natural gas or oil series depending on user input specifications). Electricity and natural gas prices are based on estimated rates and included only as convenient reference. Users may provide general rate characteristics or contact Jackson Associates concerning the incorporation of detailed rate structures. The following information as part of the Detailed Results option. is provided:

Monthly kWh use for twelve months (online in charts and tables)
Monthly peak kW for twelve months (online in charts and tables)
Monthly estimates of energy charge, demand charge and total electricity bills for twelve months (online in charts and tables)
Monthly average estimates of electricity price ($/kWh) for twelve months (online in charts and tables)
Average month day-type 24 Hour load profiles for four day types (week day, peak day, Saturday, Sunday) for twelve months (online in charts and tables)
Whole-building electric hourly loads for each of the 8,760 hours of a typical meteorological year.
Space heating, electric air conditioning, water heating and "all other" electric hourly loads for each of the 8,760 hours of a typical meteorological year (extended option only).

Example Online charts and tables

The first four charts summarize monthly energy use and electricity bills.

Monthly Charts

The chart below shows average monthly load profiles for week days for each of the twelve months. Similar charts are provided for peak days, Saturdays and Sundays.

Chart of Monthly Load Profiles

Online tables are provided as well showing all of the information in the charts including the 24 hourly load profiles for each of the four day types for each month.

Chart of Monthly Load Profiles

Hourly Loads Sources
The hourly loads used in have been developed from the MAISY Utility Marketing and Hourly Loads Databases. MAISY Hourly Loads Databases are derived from more than one million commercial, residential and industrial customer records in the US and Canada and are used by utilities, retail energy providers, energy service companies, equipment manufacturers, energy users and research and government organizations to address a variety of issues including:

Rate structure analysis
Strategic pricing analysis
Equipment design
Energy and load forecasting

Energy use, peak demand and energy cost benchmarking
Customer profitability
Market analysis
Target marketing