Residential Electricity Demand Management Through Tariff Structure: Agent-based Modeling

Recently, imbalances in the electricity production and consumption in Iran, have caused critical situations at specific times of the year; meanwhile, the residential sector, with a 51 percent share, is the main reason for peak demand crisis. According to the international experiences, it can be hoped that by revising the residential electricity tariff structure, consumption pattern in this sector would be modified. Therefore in this study, according to the country’s ongoing projects and infrastructures, a new electricity tariff structure which is a combination of time-of-use and maximum-demand pricing, has been proposed. In the second part of this study, by developing an agent-based model and applying this tariff to residential consumers, their consumption behavior in peak hours is simulated. The results of these simulations, showed that by offering this tariff to consumers, the average demand of peak-hours can be reduced by 6.15 percent.