PRECON: Pakistan Residential Energy Consumption Dataset

Buildings consume on average of over 40% of energy throughout the world. Therefore, it is crucial to fully understand the consumption behaviour of building occupants for energy efficiency, efficient load balancing and better demand-side management. To this end, small number of datasets are available from developing countries, particularly South Asia, that can model consumption behaviours of a wide range of residential electricity users. In this paper, we present PRECON dataset, collected over a period of one year, of electricity consumption patterns for 42 residential properties having varied demographics. Data is collected for the whole house consumption and from high powered devices as well as from major areas of the building. This dataset can play a pivotal role for distribution companies and policymakers to use data-driven optimization of generation, perform better demand-side management and improve energy efficiency.

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According to some estimates, solar, wind and other forms of renewable energy will generate over 85% of electricity by 2050. This transition towards renewable energy is coming faster than our imagination. Traditionally, electricity has been generated by utility scale electricity generators and the electricity business has been a monopoly due to full control of utility companies on the wire business. The uptake of distributed solar energy has changed this monopoly and now customers can produce their own energy with an option to export it back to the grid. Falling solar prices have made it attractive for customers to partially generate their own electricity and with falling battery prices, the customer may defect the grid altogether.
The goal of this report is to look at how the utilities around the globe are dealing with the phenomenon of distributed solar. After carrying out a thorough literature survey we have met with several professionals of the power sector in Pakistan on their views on this changing landscape of utilities. Finally, we looked at the current legislations, regulations and policies in Pakistan to suggest a utility model that is ready to take on the new challenges of disruptive innovations in the power sector. We are terming it Electric Utility 2.1 because on top of distributed solar and net-metering, it also considers their implication as well as other innovations the utilities can make use of along with them.

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