IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SUSTAINABLE ENERGY, VOL. 8, NO.
3, JULY 2017
Energy Demand Model for Residential Sector:
A First Principles Approach
Rajesh Subbiah, Anamitra Pal, Member, IEEE, Eric K. Nordberg, Achla Marathe,
and Madhav V. Marathe, Fellow, IEEE
Abstract—According to the U.S. Energy Information Adminis-
tration (EIA), the residential sector accounts for one-third of the
country’s energy consumption. This number is steadily increasing,
posing a challenge to energy regulators as well as suppliers. To man-
age the growing demand for energy, there is a need for energy sys-
tem optimization, especially on the demand side. This paper uses a
first principles approach to build a high-resolution energy demand
model, which can be used as a test bed by academicians as well as
policy makers for performing such optimizations. This framework
generates activity-based, building-level, time-dependent demand
profiles. The model associates appliance usage with each household
activity and calculates energy consumption based on the appliance
energy rating, the duration of the energy consuming activity, and
the type of activity performed by each household member. It also
accounts for shared activities among household members to avoid
double counting. Additionally, passive energy consumptions such
as space heating/cooling, lighting, etc., are measured. Finally, vali-
dation of the results obtained by this model against real-world data
for Virginia is carried out. The results indicate that the modeling
framework is robust and can be extended to other parts of the U.S.
and beyond.
Index Terms—Activity-based, appliance usage, energy demand,
energy rating, residential, shared activity.
NOMENCLATURE
Ak : Household activity k
Hi : Synthetic household i drawn f rom the synthetic
population
n : N umber of demographic variables
Pij : Synthetic household member j f rom Hi
Manuscript received March 10, 2016; revised June 16, 2016, September 24,
2016, and January 3, 2017; accepted February 6, 2017. Date of publication
February 15, 2017; date of current version June 17, 2017. This work was sup-
ported in part by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency under Grant HDTRA1-
11-1-0016, in part by DTRA Comprehensive National Incident Management
System under Contract HDTRA1-11-D-0016-0001, in part by the Department
of Energy under Grant DE-EE0007660, in part by National Science Foundation
Network Science and Engineering under Grant CNS-1011769, in part by the
National Institutes of Health under Grant 1R01GM109718, in part by Inter-
face between Computer Science and Economics & Social Science (NSF-ICES)
(CCF-1216000), and in part by (NSF-NRT) (DESE Grant DGE-154362). Paper
no. TSTE-00189-2016.
R. Subbiah, E. K. Nordberg, A. Marathe, and M. V. Marathe are with the
Network Dynamics and Simulation Science Laboratory, Biocomplexity Insti-
tute of Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA 24061 USA (e-mail: csrajesh@vt.edu;
enordber@vbi.vt.edu; amarathe@vbi.vt.edu; mmarathe@vbi.vt.edu).
A. Pal is with the School of Electrical, Computer, and Energy Engineer-
ing, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287 USA (e-mail: Anamitra.Pal@
asu.edu).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TSTE.2017.2669990
1949-3029 © 2017 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See http://www.ieee.org/publications standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
1215
◦ 2
R: T hermal resistance of the household in FB Tf tU h
Td : Household temperature during the day in ◦ F
Tn : Household temperature at night in ◦ F

X: Demographic f eature set of length n
I. INTRODUCTION
ORE than 30 percent of the total energy consumption
M in the U.S. is attributable to the residential sector, and
this number is expected to rise due to increased use of ap-
pliances and modern electronic devices [1]. This makes the
residential sector an important target group for energy conser-
vation. To analyze any modern energy optimization strategy,
accurate energy demand profiles of residential buildings are an
important prerequisite. Physical factors (e.g., building struc-
ture and size, level of insulation), human behavior (e.g., daily
routines) and economic factors (e.g., household income) influ-
ence residential energy consumption. Thus, it is important to
understand these factors by taking into consideration specific
contexts.
To simulate energy consumption in the context of homes, it is
important to consider both individual as well as group behavior.
According to [2], contextual elements that represent behavior
are categorized as individuality (state), activity (human needs
expressed as ‘what’ and ‘how’), location (spatial arrangements),
time, (current or any virtual time), and relations. Several studies
have tried to quantify the effect of human behavior on energy
demand [3]–[5]. In [6] the activity schedule of individuals who
responded to the American Time Use Survey (ATUS) [7] was
considered. However, [6] did not address the inherent time-use
dependencies within a household due to the sharing of activities
among the household members.
Physical factors such as temperature also play an important
role in calculating total residential energy consumption. Ref.
[8] studied the thermal sensitivity aspect of residential electric-
ity demand. It constructed dynamic energy demand profiles for
individual consumers based on consumers’ responses to out-
side temperature. In [9], the authors used wireless sensor home
area networks to communicate with appliances and energy man-
agement units, while in [10] an automatic controller to sched-
ule appliance usage was designed so as to provide an optimal
cost. However, the disadvantage of the automated optimiza-
tion schemes was that they ignored consumers’ behaviors and
choices [11]. An agent-based modeling framework that gener-
ated residential energy demand profiles for urban areas while
1216
considering land use, energy infrastructure as well as user be-
havior was developed in [12].
In terms of modeling approaches, the two most commonly
used for predicting residential energy demand are the top-down
and the bottom-up approaches, respectively [13]. In a top-down
approach, energy consumption is modeled at an aggregate level
as a function of macro-economic factors such as Gross Domestic
Product (GDP), climate, etc., [14]–[16]. A bottom-up approach
is one where residential energy demand profiles are modeled
based on household activities and occupancy patterns [17]–[19].
A thorough review of the two modeling techniques can be found
in [13].
In this paper, we use a bottom-up approach to calculate house-
hold level energy consumption of a synthetic population while
considering human and physical factors. The data used for cre-
ating the models are obtained from synthetic population models
of the U.S. [20]–[22], ATUS, Residential Energy Consumption
Survey (RECS), as well as a variety of online resources. An
earlier version of this model was applied to Washington, DC
[23]. The model has been significantly revised so as to increase
its applicability. This paper describes the model in detail, and
applies it to Virginia. Finally, validation of the model is car-
ried out by comparing the model results with publicly available
data sets as well as with proprietary data obtained from power
utilities.
The rest of the paper is structured as follows. Section III
describes the salient features of the model with an emphasis
on different datasets that were used in creating it. Section IV
explains the models and methods used to build energy con-
sumption profiles. Section V applies the model to Virginia and
compares it with actual consumption data obtained from a utility
service provider. A case study describing the practical utility of
this methodology is also presented in that section. Conclusions
are provided in Section VI.
II. SALIENT FEATURES OF THE MODEL AND DATASETS
Our model builds individual activity schedules for every
household. The activities are mapped to the wattages of the ap-
pliances used when performing those activities, which are then
translated into energy consumption by considering the duration
for which the appliances were active. Coordinated or simulta-
neously occurring activities shared among multiple household
members are pruned so as to avoid double counting of energy
consumed. For example, if a household has a cooking activity
occurring in the morning, the energy consumed by the appli-
ances used for that activity is counted only once, even though
multiple household members may be involved in the cooking
activity. ATUS data [7] are used to assign activity patterns to the
individuals in the synthetic population (described later). The
ATUS respondents report all activities in which they are in-
volved. If the activity was shared with another household mem-
ber, it also reports with whom that activity was shared.
Next, to estimate the energy consumed from activities, an
association of appliance usage to energy demand is modeled.
For example, if a household performs a “cooking” activity, one
needs to know the appliances used (for example, toaster-oven,
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SUSTAINABLE ENERGY, VOL. 8, NO. 3, JULY 2017
microwave, etc.) and the amount of energy required by each. We
start by building demographic-based individual activity sched-
ules for each household member, while accounting for within-
household dependencies due to shared and coordinated activi-
ties. Using the (independent or shared) activity start times and
durations from the ATUS survey, we compute the energy con-
sumed by the appliance(s) associated with each activity. This
process is repeated for all activities that are assumed to occur in
the household. The active energy consumed is then combined
with passive energy consumption such as space heating/cooling,
lighting, etc. to generate the household level energy demand.
The following datasets were used in our analysis:
1) Synthetic Population: To create a detailed energy demand
profile, we first built a synthetic population of Virginia,
U.S. The synthetic population is statistically equivalent
to the population of Virginia, as given by the U.S. Cen-
sus, and has all the same individual and household level
demographic attributes such as age, gender, household
size, income, etc. Along with the U.S. Census, a vari-
ety of additional datasets such as the National Household
Travel Survey (NHTS), Dun and Bradstreet, Land Use,
and NAVTEQ have been used in the construction of this
synthetic population. More details on this methodology
can be found in [20]–[22].
2) ATUS Data: To derive realistic activity and time schedules
of the population, we used 2010 ATUS data [7]. It con-
tains 24-hour period, minute-to-minute, activity diaries
for 13,260 respondents across the U.S. with varying demo-
graphics. Each activity in the survey data embeds activity
start time, end time, location, and participant information.
In addition, the survey data contain each respondent’s de-
mographic information (such as age, gender, marital sta-
tus, work status, etc.). For each household in ATUS, the
survey collects information from one household member,
the respondent.
3) RECS Data: We used the U.S. EIA (Energy Information
Administration) RECS 2009 data to estimate the passive
energy consumed by the households [24]. EIA-RECS is
a national survey that collects energy related information
from different types of housing units and provides esti-
mates of the energy consumption for the entire U.S. We
use this data set to obtain housing unit specific information
such as floor area, space heating fuel, etc. We used param-
eters such as household size, household type, household
income, and regional information to match the synthetic
information data with the EIA-RECS household.
III. METHODOLOGY
The synthetic population and households were created using
the methodology described in [20]–[22]. ATUS data provide de-
mographic information as well as information on energy-related
activities. After matching demographics of the individuals in the
ATUS data with the demographics of the synthetic individuals
using the CART (classification and regression tree) methodol-
ogy, information pertaining to energy activities in ATUS data
was overlaid onto the synthetic individuals. Similarly, EIA-
SUBBIAH et al.: ENERGY DEMAND MODEL FOR RESIDENTIAL SECTOR: A FIRST PRINCIPLES APPROACH
Fig. 1. Flow diagram of the energy-demand modeling framework.
RECS was used to assign building characteristics and appliance
information to the synthetic individuals’ home locations. Fig. 1
provides an overall view of the system. Each rectangular box in
Fig. 1 represents an input data set and each rounded rectangular
box represents a module in our modeling framework.
We split all household energy consumption into two major
categories and represented the total energy consumption of a
household as shown in (1).
Etotal = Eactive + Epassive (1)
1) In (1), Eactive is the energy consumed due to appliance
usage from independent or shared activities, e.g., cooking
or watching TV. These activities are mainly a function of
the household member’s daily schedule. For example, a
person who is employed will have a completely different
schedule of activities compared to a person who is not
employed. Similarly, a household with children will have
a different set of activities from a household with no chil-
dren. Even for a common set of activities, their time of
occurrence and duration will differ. On the other hand,
Epassive is the energy consumed for general habitation
of the house, such as space heating/cooling, lighting, etc.
This usage mainly depends on the climate and character-
istics of the house such as the type and size of housing
unit, fuel used, insulation, wall type, etc., and not as much
on the activities of the residents. The next subsections de-
scribe the active and passive energy demand models in
greater details.
A. Eactiv e Energy Demand Model
This is computed in two segments as shown below.
1) Activity sequence generator: To construct a household’s
energy usage level, we modeled each member’s daily activity
schedule. Based on [25], and [26], we first identified the highest
energy consuming activities in a typical household. These were
1217
found to be laundry, dishwashing, cooking, cleaning, watching
TV, and using computers. To assign an activity sequence to
a synthetic individual Pij of household Hi , we matched the
synthetic individual Pij with an ATUS survey respondent based
upon the similarity of their demographics. Our main objective
was to partition the survey dataset into smaller datasets using
the demographic variables. The 7 demographic variables used in
our analysis are: age (<24, 24-51, >51), gender (M/F), student
(Y/N), employed (Y/N), children (Y/N), married (Y/N), and
household size (1, 2-3, >3). The demographic feature set X̃ =
(X1 , X2 , . . . Xn ) is comprised of the n demographic variables
and is used to overlay the activity sequence of ATUS survey
respondents on the synthetic population. This is done using
CART [27] as described below.
Initially, all survey respondents are represented as the root
node of the tree, and demographic variable set X̃ is used to split
them into branches. At each stage, CART splits the root node into
multiple groups based on the best possible demographic after
performing an exhaustive search of all possible combinations.
The process is recursive in nature. That is, each node can be
split into multiple child nodes and, in turn, each of these child
nodes may themselves be split, forming additional child nodes.
Next, the activities that a synthetic individual can perform are
refined into two bins:
a) Independent Activities: These are activities in which ap-
pliance usage is not shared. An example of such an activity
might be using a computer. To assign independent activ-
ities to synthetic individuals, we first build a CART tree
using the ATUS data. CART uses demographic variables
to divide the ATUS respondents into homogeneous groups
in terms of their energy activities, as represented by the
nodes of the CART tree. Then each person in the synthetic
population is assigned a node in the CART tree based on
its matching demographic variables. Finally, an ATUS re-
spondent is selected at random from this node of CART
and his/her activity pattern is assigned to the synthetic
individual.
1218 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SUSTAINABLE ENERGY, VOL. 8, NO. 3, JULY 2017

b) Shared Activities:These are activities in which appliance TABLE I

ACTIVITY APPLIANCE USAGE AND ENERGY RATING INFORMATION [25], [26]
usage is shared among all the household members. Ex-
amples of such activities are laundry, dishwashing, cook-
ing, cleaning, etc. All shared activities except cooking are Activity Name Appliance Used Appliance Effective Activity Wattage
Wattage
assumed to occur at most once daily. To assign shared
activities to households, the following methodology was Laundry Washer 425 (425 × 0.4 + 3400 × 0.6) = 2210
Dryer 3400
adopted. Dishwashing Dishwasher 1800 1800
For laundry, dishwashing, and cleaning (examples of activi- Cleaning Vacuum Cleaner 1225 1225
ties that were performed only once per day), we identified which Watching TV Television 250 250
Using Computer Computer 125 125
members in the synthetic household performed these shared ac- Cooking Toaster oven 1225 (1225 × 0.5 + 1000 × 0.5 + 1500
tivities based on the activity template that was assigned to them (morning) × 0.5) = 1863
from the survey. If only one person is expected to do the shared Coffee maker 1000
Microwave 1500
activity, it was treated like an independent activity. However, if Cooking (day) Microwave 1500 1500 or 4500
multiple members of the household are expected to do these ac- Electric Range 4500
tivities, only one of them was randomly selected to perform the
complete activity and only the energy consumed by that indi-
vidual activity was counted in the total energy usage calculation multiple possible appliances. For example, daytime cooking ac-
for the household. tivities may use either a microwave or an electric range.
In the case of cooking, we assumed it occurs at most three Table I shows the appliance wattages and the effective ac-
times per day, once in the morning and twice during the rest tivity wattages. The “effective activity wattage” combines the
of the day. Appliances used for cooking in the morning were wattages of multiple appliances, weighted by their relative du-
assumed to be a toaster oven, coffee maker, and microwave, rations of use. As examples, during one cycle of the laundry
while appliances used for daytime cooking were assumed to activity, a washer is used for 40% of the time, while a dryer is
be a microwave and electric range. If there are multiple people used for the remaining 60%. For a morning cooking activity,
cooking in the morning, we randomly selected one of them to each of the three appliances is used for half of the total time.
do the entire activity. Energy used by this member was counted Each daytime cooking activity will use either a microwave or
in the total energy calculation for the whole household’s morn- an electric range, with a probability of 0.5 for each.
ing cooking activity. Similarly, we determined all non-morning The energy consumption values computed in Table I refer
cooking activities that are expected to take place in a household to the energy that is consumed by the actual appliances (dish-
and randomly selected two of them as being performed either washer, washing machine, etc.) when they are being used. How-
simultaneously by two members or as sequential independent ever, in addition to this energy, some amount of energy is also
activities by a randomly selected household member among the needed in keeping “hot water” readily available for the residents
ones who were to perform the cooking activity. of the household for doing their daily activities (laundry, cook-
2) Associating appliance usage to energy demand calcula- ing, bathing, etc.). That part of energy usage is not included
tion: After generating per-household activity sequences, the in this table. The amount of “hot water” that is needed can be
next major step was to identify and associate appliances to each estimated from the duration that the residents spend on doing
activity Ak . Using the appliance standard wattage rating from those activities. Dishwashing, laundry, bathing (for eight min-
[25], [26] and the duration over which it is active, we estimate utes), and cooking require seven, six, ten, and one gallon of hot
the energy consumption using the formula: water, respectively [28]. The energy factor, which indicates an
efficiency measure based on the amount of hot water produced
Energy = Appliance Wattage × Appliance Active Duration per unit of fuel consumed, was obtained from [28]. We used it to
(2) estimate the amount of energy needed for each of the activities
that required hot water as shown in (3). In order to heat x gal-
Some activities involve the use of multiple appliances sequen- lons of water from temperature Tcold to Thot (in Fahrenheit),
tially or simultaneously. Therefore, the total energy consumed the amount of energy required (in kWh) is:
by the activity becomes a function of the energy consumed by
each of the appliances used. To calculate the total energy con- x × C × (Tcold − Thot )
Ehot−water = . (3)
sumed for the activity, we disaggregated the activity duration to Energy Factor
the individual appliance level and then combined the energies kW h
In (3), C is a constant and has a value of 0.00189 gal ◦
F . The
used by the individual appliances. We modeled three different
energy calculated in (3) was then added to the corresponding
types of multi-appliance activities. In the first type, multiple
values mentioned in Table I to obtain the total active energy
appliances were used sequentially. For example, one cycle of
consumption for the respective activities.
a laundry activity was expected to use a washer and a dryer
serially. In the second type, multiple appliances were used si-
B. Epassiv e Energy Demand Model
multaneously. For example, a morning cooking activity may use
a toaster oven, coffee maker, and microwave, with overlapping We used EIA-RECS 2009 data to estimate the Epassive energy
periods of usage. In the third type, there is a choice among consumed in the household by deriving housing unit specific in-
SUBBIAH et al.: ENERGY DEMAND MODEL FOR RESIDENTIAL SECTOR: A FIRST PRINCIPLES APPROACH
Fig. 2. Modeling framework to generate energy demand model for residential buildings.
formation, such as floor area, wall area (extrapolated from floor
area), heating fuel type, etc., from the survey data and overlay-
ing it onto the synthetic houses of our study. We used house-
hold income and regional information to match the synthetic
household with the EIA-RECS household. Once a match with
similar characteristics was found, specific housing unit infor-
mation available from EIA-RECS was overlaid on the synthetic
household. This allowed us to make realistic estimates of the
Epassive energy consumption.
1) Space Heating and Cooling: Energy consumed due to
space heating and cooling depends on climatic conditions,
fuel used, type of heating/cooling equipment used, etc. To
approximately calculate the energy consumed due to this
activity we used weather data obtained from [29]. For
each synthetic household unit we derived (a) S: average
square footage heated/cooled; (b) Td : household temper-
ature during the day; (c) Tn : household temperature at
night; and (d) fuel and equipment used for heating. Using
this information and the hourly temperature data obtained
from [29], we used Fourier’s law to calculate the Heat loss
rate Q as shown in
(Area) × (Tinside − Toutside ) S × (ΔT)
Q= = .
Thermal Resistance Coeffcient R
(4)
In (4), Tinside depends on the time of day and can be either
Td or Tn , while the R − value varies from surface-to-surface,
and state-to-state [30]. To keep the household at a desired tem-
perature, heating equipment is needed to generate the heat en-
ergy required to compensate for the heat loss Q. This kind of
equipment also has an efficiency parameter, η, which measures
the amount of energy that translates to actual work. For example,
if a household uses a natural gas furnace for their space heating
and if the furnace operates at 82% efficiency, then, the furnace
1219
needs Q/0.82 amount of energy to keep the house at the desired
temperature. Based on the fuel and type of heating equipment
used in the household, we associated an efficiency value to each
piece of equipment using [31] and calculated the total energy
required to keep the households at the desired temperature on
an hourly basis.
2) Refrigerator and Lighting: The national average values of
energy consumption per household for refrigeration [25]
and lighting [32] were assigned to the synthetic house-
holds. The compressors of refrigerators were assumed to
be active for two hours every day.
IV. EXPERIMENTS AND RESULTS
A. Implementation of Modeling Framework
Fig. 2 shows our modeling framework, which was imple-
mented in Java. The framework was designed to meet the fol-
lowing design objectives: (a) to provide an easily extensible
modular framework which supports changes in mathematical
models, input datasets, and synthetic data, and (b) to help evalu-
ate different what-if scenarios with minimal modifications. This
allows policy makers, who may not be modeling experts, to
benefit from this framework.
B. Illustrative Case: Virginia
In this paper, energy consumption for Virginia was computed
using the methodology described in Section IV. For the synthetic
◦
f t2 h
households, R − value was set at 13 FBTU for the walls and
◦
f t2 h
40 FBTU for the ceiling [30]. The analysis was carried out for
four days of 2009 (the year which best matches our ATUS and
RECS data sets). The four days represented the four seasons
that Virginia experiences. Note that only the passive energy
component of residential energy consumption is affected by the
change in seasons. Our model-based energy consumption results
1220
Fig. 3. (a) Estimated total active energy consumption for the residents of Virginia. (b) Estimated energy consumed by different activities performed by the
residents of Virginia.
for Virginia were compared with actual energy consumption
values obtained from the U.S. EIA as well as a power utility
supplying power to Virginia. The results obtained are as follows.
In the first set of simulations, active energy consumption for
Virginia was computed using our model. The plot was created
using the mean of the four modeled days, one day for each sea-
son. The dotted red line of Fig. 3(a) shows this value for the
entire state over the period of a day. The green and blue lines in
the same figure show the total active energy consumptions when
Virginia was divided into two segments – Northern and Eastern
(N-E), and Central and Western (C-W). These divisions were
made by combining regions 1-4 and 5-8 of [33]. The ability
to divide Virginia into regions of choice allows our framework
to perform studies tailored to specific areas of interest. As an
example, Fig. 3(a) shows that the active energy demand profile
of the N-E segment matches the over-all profile for Virginia
more closely than the C-W segment. This suggests that people
in the N-E segment of Virginia dominate the energy use for
the state. Fig. 3(b) reports estimated active energy consumption
from individual activities performed by residents of Virginia.
From the figure it is clear that cooking is the most energy con-
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SUSTAINABLE ENERGY, VOL. 8, NO. 3, JULY 2017
suming activity (in agreement with previous results [5]), with a
peak occurring around 6 PM. Watching TV comes second with
its peak occurring after 8 PM, and continuing for most of the
night. Cleaning was the most energy consuming activity of the
late mornings (9 AM to noon).
Estimates of passive energy (Epassive ) consumption for the
households of Virginia were computed next. This was added to
the active energy consumption computed previously to under-
stand the total energy consumed by a household. The results
obtained for the per-household energy consumed by space heat-
ing, water heating, and appliance usage (including refrigeration
and lighting) as a function of Virginia FIPS codes [34] are shown
in Fig. 4(a). This plot shows the daily mean energy consump-
tion averaged over four seasons. The results indicate that for
Virginia space heating/cooling consumes maximum energy an-
nually. Compared to the wider variations in energy consumed
due to space heating, the amount of energy consumed per house-
hold for water heating and appliance usage appear almost uni-
form. This is attributed to the fact that energy used for space
heating/cooling is heavily dependent on the geographical lo-
cation of the corresponding FIPS codes. Fig. 4(b) shows the
SUBBIAH et al.: ENERGY DEMAND MODEL FOR RESIDENTIAL SECTOR: A FIRST PRINCIPLES APPROACH 1221

Fig. 4. (a) Estimated daily energy consumption per household for different FIPS codes in Virginia; ∗ Appliance usage includes refrigeration and lighting.
(b) Estimated energy consumption per household for different FIPS codes in Virginia for normative days in Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall.

variation in the residential energy consumption for a normative

day in each of the four seasons, as a function of the FIPS codes.
As expected, energy consumed during a normative winter day
is found to be substantially higher than the energy consumed
during other seasons. This is because in the winter season space
heating dominates all other uses of energy. Fig. 5 compares the
total residential energy consumption for the whole year as calcu-
lated by our model with that given by U.S. EIA [35]. The figure
shows that our model closely matches the U.S. EIA results.
From this comparison it also becomes clear that the four days
we modeled were good representations of the four seasons.1

Fig. 5. Yearly residential energy consumption by category for Virginia. Left

1A comparison of the daily residential load profile for the state of Iowa chart is obtained from U.S. EIA data. Right chart is obtained using the data
obtained using our approach with that observed in [36] can be found in [37]. obtained from our model.
1222 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SUSTAINABLE ENERGY, VOL. 8, NO. 3, JULY 2017

Fig. 6. Comparison of energy consumed per-household estimated by our model versus actual usage data obtained from a power utility for a normative winter
day. Blue bars correspond to Dominion Virginia Power (DVP) data while the yellow bars correspond to our model.

Fig. 7. A scenario depicting the impact of shifting cooking activity from peak to off-peak hours for different fractions of a specific demographic class (at least
one stay-at-home adult available in the household) on the daily load curve of Virginia.

Next, we compared our per-household energy consumption
for the winter months with proprietary data obtained from Do-
minion Virginia Power (DVP), a power utility in Virginia. The
DVP data consist of five years of winter month energy con-
sumption data (2011–2015) for different districts of Virginia
along with the number of residential households served in each
district in that time period. The DVP district boundaries do
not necessarily align with county boundaries, and the precise
boundaries of the districts were not available to us. Therefore,
for comparison purposes, we selected those regions of Virginia
for which our population size best matched that given in the
DVP database. Fig. 6 shows the results for the five matching
districts of Virginia. The figure indicates that for most of the
districts, the differences between the results obtained using our
model and the DVP database lie within ±10%. Such a level of
variability is expected because apart from the boundary align-
SUBBIAH et al.: ENERGY DEMAND MODEL FOR RESIDENTIAL SECTOR: A FIRST PRINCIPLES APPROACH
ment issue, our model was based on the 2010 ATUS and 2009
RECS data, whereas the data received from DVP was for the
years 2011-2015.
C. Practical Application: Reducing Peak of Daily Load Curve
Our model produces daily load curves, which, when aggre-
gated, closely match annual real-world data obtained from pub-
lic and private agencies. These high-resolution temporal load
profiles can be used to address many emerging issues in smart
grid technology. As one example of a potential application, we
investigate the effects of energy pricing policies, intended to
reduce peak demand, by shifting some peak-time activities to
off-peak times.
Virginia’s residential energy demand peaks between 4:30 and
7:00 PM, and cooking is the most energy consuming activity
during that time period. An increase in energy price during this
time is expected to encourage some consumers to shift their
energy-consuming activities to non-peak times. We modeled a
policy in which the price for energy is increased between 4:30
and 7:00 PM. We found that 65% of the synthetic Virginia house-
holds have at least one adult at home all day. Households which
satisfy this demographic attribute (henceforth called eligible
households) are expected to have some flexibility with regards
to their cooking schedules. Accordingly, different percentages
of the eligible households were set to perform their day time
cooking activities at off-peak times. The new start times were
chosen from a uniform random distribution such that the activity
would start after 12:00 PM and end before 4:30 PM. Cooking ac-
tivities that were longer than 4.5 hours were made to start before
12:00 PM, in order to avoid encroaching upon the higher-priced
energy zone. Fig. 7 shows results for various proportions of the
eligible households moving their cooking times to an earlier
time period. The maximum peak reduction (∼200 MWh) was
achieved when 50% of the eligible households responded. This
application demonstrates that our model is flexible enough to
study detailed, policy-oriented, what-if scenarios that might be
of interest to regulators.
V. CONCLUSION
This research presents a highly resolved model to estimate
residential energy demand. The model incorporates household
activity sequences for each member of the household, identifies
which activities are shared and which occur independently, and
then maps them to appliance usage and the length of time used.
It also considers the passive energy consumption of each hous-
ing unit based on physical factors, such as weather, floor area,
etc. The model was applied to Virginia and the results were val-
idated against real-world data available from public and private
sources. A case study is also presented to show the practical
utility of this model in reducing the peak of the daily load
curve. The novelty of our method lies in using an individual-
based modeling approach and combining it with a synthetic
population database to generate highly resolved and realistic
energy demand profiles of individuals and households.
As ATUS and EIA RECS data are available for the entire U.S.,
we can apply our methodology to other parts of the U.S. to create
1223
nationwide demand profiles. Since the methodology developed
here is generic, if the necessary data sets become available, the
framework developed here can be applied to countries outside
the U.S. as well. We are also exploring other applications of our
methodology. Examples include finding optimal locations for
energy storage systems so as to minimize the harmful effects
of bi-directional flow of power caused by renewable energy
sources like roof-top solar, and finding suitable locations for
placing electric vehicle charging stations in a modern city.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and
does not necessarily represent the official views of NSF, NIH,
or DTRA. The authors would like to thank the collaborators
at Dominion Virginia Power, a power utility in Virginia, for
providing with data to validate our model and also K. Lum,
A. Phadke, J. Thorp, and K. Vance for their valuable inputs.
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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SUSTAINABLE ENERGY, VOL. 8, NO. 3, JULY 2017
Rajesh Subbiah received the B.Tech. degree in computer science and engi-
neering from SASTRA University, Tamil Nadu, India, in 2008 and the M.S.
degree in computer science from Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, USA, in 2013.
He is currently working as a Senior Software Engineer at Nimble Storage.
Previously (2013–2016), he was at Qualcomm, designing low-level power and
thermal optimizations for multicluster CPUs. Prior to his Master’s, he worked
as a Researcher at TCS Innovation Lab—Chennai, a research division of TATA
Consultancy Services, India. At TCS, he worked on designing innovative meth-
ods to manage and reduce data center energy consumption jointly from a power
and performance perspective. He has two U.S. patents to his credit.
Anamitra Pal (S’10–M’14) received the B.E. degree (summa) in electrical
and electronics engineering from Birla Institute of Technology, Mesra, Ranchi,
India, in 2008 and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from
Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, USA, in 2012 and 2014, respectively. He is cur-
rently an Assistant Professor in the School of Electrical, Computer, and Energy
Engineering, Arizona State University. Previously, he was a postdoctoral fellow
in the Network Dynamics and Simulation Science Laboratory, Biocomplexity
Institute of Virginia Tech. From 2008 to 2010, he worked as a Manager in Tata
Steel Ltd. (TSL), Jamshedpur, India. He was also a summer intern at Electric
Power Group, LLC in Pasadena, CA, USA, in 2012 and 2013. His current
research interests include power system modeling, transient and dynamic sta-
bility analysis, and wide area measurements-based protection, monitoring, and
control.
Eric K. Nordberg received the B.S. degree in biology from Guilford College,
Greensboro, NC, USA, in 1996, the M.S. degree in genetics from The University
of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA, in 2002, and the Ph.D. degree in genetics,
bioinformatics, and computational biology from Virginia Tech in 2015. He has
been with Virginia Tech since 2002, and a Senior Software Engineer at NDSSL
since 2013. His research interests include phylogenetics, usability, performance
tuning, and high-performance computing.
Achla Marathe received the B.A. (Hons.) degree in economics from Delhi
University, New Delhi, India, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in economics from
the University at Albany–State University of New York, Albany, NY, USA. She
is currently a Professor at the Biocomplexity Institute and at the Department
of Agricultural and Applied Economics, Virginia Tech. She is also a faculty of
Health Sciences. Before joining Virginia Tech, she worked as a technical staff
member at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico.
Her research interests include modeling of socially coupled systems, critical
infrastructures, and infectious diseases.
Madhav V. Marathe (F’13) is currently the Director of the Network Dynamics
and Simulation Science Laboratory, Biocomplexity Institute of Virginia Tech
and a Professor of Computer Science at Virginia Tech. Before coming to Vir-
ginia Tech, he was a Team Leader in the Computer and Computational Sciences
Division, Los Alamos National Laboratory where he led the basic research
programs in foundations of computing and high-performance simulation sci-
ence for analyzing extremely large socio-technical and critical infrastructure
systems. He has published more than 250 research articles in peer reviewed
journals, conference proceedings, and books, and has over ten years of expe-
rience in project leadership and technology development, specializing in high-
performance computing algorithms and software environments for simulating
and analyzing socio-technical network science. He is a Fellow of the ACM and
AAAS. His research interests include network science, population dynamics,
communication networks, computational epidemiology, design and architecture
of the data grid, design and analysis of algorithms, computational complexity,
design of services-oriented architectures, high performance computing, and
socio-technical systems.