End-Use Load Profiles for the U.S. Building Stock
NREL and its research partners have developed a database of end-use load profiles (EULP) representing all major end uses, building types, and climate regions in the U.S. commercial and residential building stock.
End-use load profiles are critically important to understanding the time-sensitive value of energy efficiency, demand response, and other distributed energy resources. This foundational dataset can help electric utilities, grid operators, manufacturers, government entities, and research organizations make critical decisions about research and development prioritization, utility resource and distribution system planning, and state and local energy planning and regulation.
Building stock models calibrated through 70+ model updates, supported by data:
- Electric load data from 11 utilities and 2.3 million meters
- 15 end-use metering datasets
This innovative approach benefited from the reach, cost-effectiveness, and granularity of physics-based building stock modeling using ResStock™ and ComStock™ developed by NREL for the U.S. Department of Energy. NREL partnered with 42 organizations to gain access to building and energy usage data for specific building types, such as residential homes, multifamily housing units, schools, and businesses. This verified information allowed the research team to further refine building characteristics and load profiles. Pre-aggregated load profiles, annual data files, and a full dataset of individual building load profiles are also available via the Open Energy Initiative webpage.
End-Use Savings Shapes
Continued research building on the success of the EULP project is creating national datasets of measure impact profiles (also known as savings shapes) to empower analysts to tackle a range of questions concerning the potential of building commercial and residential electrification measures and more. The datasets are intended to illustrate how different building decarbonization paths will affect our nation's electric grid, its energy needs, and its buildings and the people that inhabit them—helping stakeholders make informed decisions.
We are continuously soliciting input on how these residential and commercial datasets are being used. To share your use case, contact load.profiles@nrel.gov.
Dataset Access
At the most fundamental level, the end-use load profile dataset is the output of approximately 900,000 (550,000 ResStock plus 350,000 ComStock) building energy models. The output of each building energy model is 1 year of energy consumption in 15-minute intervals, separated into end-use categories. The dataset has also been formatted to be accessible in four ways—via files of individual model characteristics together with annual results, pre-aggregated load profiles in downloadable spreadsheets, a web viewer, and a detailed format that can be queried with big data tools—to meet the needs of many different users and use cases. There are separate lists of public datasets available for residential and commercial building stocks.
Pre-aggregated load profiles are available at data.openei.org. See the pre-aggregated load profiles README.md file for details.
Many users seek end-use load profiles that reflect the sum or average of all buildings of a given type in a given geographic area. These are referred to as "aggregate'' load profiles. To support many use cases, aggregates for the following geographic resolutions were created:
- 16 ASHRAE/International Energy Conservation Code climate zones
- 5 U.S. Department of Energy Building America climate zones
- 8 electric system independent system operator and regional transmission organization regions
- 2,400+ U.S. Census Public Use Microdata Areas
- 3,000+ U.S. counties.
Each aggregate load profile is represented by a single comma-separated value file, which can be opened using common data analysis tools, such as Microsoft Excel. There is a column for each end-use category and fuel type and a row for each 15-minute time period. In addition to the timeseries data, a file contains a list of identifiers for all the building energy models included in each aggregate. These identifiers can be cross-referenced against a separate tab-separated value file, which contains the characteristics (age, type, height, etc.) of each building energy model. In this manner, it is possible to understand the characteristics of the building stock for each aggregate.
County-level aggregates are primarily provided to facilitate further aggregation to larger geographic areas, such as utility service territories. ResStock and ComStock model buildings in proportion to how real buildings are distributed. Heavily populated urban counties contain many buildings, so ResStock and ComStock include many models in these areas, and the aggregate load profiles for these areas are robust. However, rural counties in sparsely populated areas do not contain many buildings. Thus, ResStock and ComStock do not include many building energy models in these areas, and the aggregate load profiles for these areas are less robust. The team highly recommends rolling up aggregates to include a minimum of 1,000 models to increase the robustness of the load profiles.
A full dataset of individual building/dwelling unit load profiles is available at OpenEI. See the full dataset of individual building/dwelling unit load profiles README.md file for details.
The raw dataset is a group of several hundred thousand files, each containing the outputs of an individual building energy model, totaling 17 terabytes. Although processing these results using conventional desktop computing is impractical, several cloud service providers make the required computing power and querying technology available to those with the technical skill set. Additionally, some users may have in-house access to advanced computing resources or want to download a small subset of individual building load profiles for their own custom use cases. To facilitate these use cases, the raw individual building results, along with the corresponding building characteristics, have been published to a public website. They may be downloaded directly from this website or queried in place using big data technologies.
The building energy models are available at data.openei.org. See the building energy models README.md file for details.
The large number of building energy models used by ResStock and ComStock to represent the building stock makes it impractical for most organizations to run the full set themselves. However, some users expressed the desire to have access to the models for other use cases, such as modeling a smaller geographic area using a subset of the models or serving as a starting point for other modeling efforts. For these reasons, the individual building energy models have been published online. These models are available in the OpenStudio® format, to allow for simulations with EnergyPlus™. A file of building characteristics allows users to identify buildings with a target set of properties to download and use.
Technical Reports
Led by NREL's end-use load profiles research team, End-Use Load Profiles for the U.S. Building Stock: Applications Methodology and Results of Model Calibration, Validation, and Uncertainty Quantification, is accessible through the NREL library, free and open to the public.
Technical Report
This technical report documents the EULP dataset, including detailed description of model improvements made for calibration, along with an explanation of validation and uncertainty of results.
Executive Summary
An executive summary of End-Use Load Profiles for the U.S. Building Stock: Applications Methodology and Results of Model Calibration, Validation, and Uncertainty Quantification is available as a separate document.
The End-Use Load Profiles for the U.S. Building Stock: Practical Guidance on Accessing and Using the Data report describes example applications and considerations for using EULPs.
Report Archive
End-Use Load Profiles for the U.S. Building Stock: Market Needs, Use Cases, and Data Gaps highlights first-year project accomplishments including the formation of a technical advisory group, identification of market needs and data gaps, and next steps to verify the accuracy of calibrated model outputs.
Videos
Visit the NREL Building Stock Analysis YouTube channel for access to webinars, presentations and guidance on the ComStock and ResStock datasets.
End-Use Savings Shapes: Commercial Round 2 Dataset Release Webinar, presented by Chris CaraDonna from NREL, provides the latest information on the second release of End-Use Savings Shapes for commercial buildings, sample results, and data access tips. (Oct. 2023)
End-Use Savings Shapes: Commercial Round 1 Dataset Release Webinar, presented by Chris Caradonna from NREL, provides full details on End-Use Savings Shapes for commercial buildings, sample results, and data access tips. (March 2023)
End-Use Savings Shapes: Residential Round 1 Dataset Release Webinar, presented by Elaina Present from NREL, provides information on the residential End-Use Savings Shapes work approach, details on the measure packages included, sample results, and data access tips. Slides from this presentation can be viewed separately. (Sept. 2022)
Three Years in the Making: Calibrated, Validated, and Publicly Available End Use Load Profiles for the U.S. Building Stock, presented by Eric Wilson and Andrew Parker from NREL and Natalie Mims Frick from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, provides an overview of the project, details options to access the end-use load profiles, and shares information on two forthcoming reports. (Oct. 28, 2021)
End-Use Load Profiles Dataset Access Demonstration provides step-by-step instructions, showing several ways to access the EULP dataset. (Oct. 2021)
Frequently Asked Questions
Suggested citation:
Wilson et al. 2021. End-Use Load Profiles for the U.S. Building Stock: Methodology and Results of Model Calibration, Validation, and Uncertainty Quantification. NREL/TP-5500-80889. https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy22osti/80889.pdf.
For ComStock, we recommend to cite our reference documentation:
Parker, Andrew, et al. 2023. ComStock Reference Documentation. Golden, CO: National Renewable Energy Laboratory. NREL/TP-5500-83819. https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy23osti/83819.pdf
Contact
We want to hear from you. How are you using EULP datasets?
To share your use case or for more information, contact load.profiles@nrel.gov.
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