Load profiling: A California application

In numerous places, events are rapidly leading to the development of region al power exchanges with visible hourly prices, which are open to purchases by "direct access" customers. Currently, the vast majority of smaller custo mers have meters that are not capable of recording hourly usage, so that th ese customers are effectively precluded from power exchange purchases. Load profiling is frequently suggested as an alternative to installation of hou rly usage meters, which will allow smaller customers to participate in dire ct access. This article describes how direct access load profiling can be i mplemented, discusses the technical challenges, and reports the results of a simulation study.