Planning and Forecasting

Ontario was one of the first jurisdictions in the world to mandate a full-scale smart-meter roll-out. Every hour smart meters transmit data to local distribution companies (LDCs) across the province. The anonymized data is then uploaded to a central provincial database.

The IESO can draw upon this database to identify historical energy use patterns in order to make informed assumptions about future energy use and the external factors that influence it. This data is being considered as an input to the Annual Planning Outlook and Reliability Outlook. This information can reveal a number of insights:

• Historical electricity use and demand can aid day-ahead forecasts and allow short-term demand planners to review assumptions in more detail
• Residential and small commercial customer profiles can serve as potential inputs into future demand
• Historical electricity use and demand can allow planners to identify postal code areas with high energy use that are good targets for conservation and energy efficiency programs

Demand & Conservation Planning Research Whitepaper

Extracting Insights and Trends from Residential and Small Commercial Electricity Data

This white paper provides data and insights on residential and small commercial electricity use from January 1, 2018 until November 30, 2021, broken down by region, postal code, distribution rate class and season among other variables.

Some examples of the data insights, include:

• Average monthly energy use by sector
• Weather/seasonal impacts on demand by sector
• Peak demand contributions by sector
• Energy demand by geographic area by sector