Some initial evidence of Canadian responsiveness to time-of-use electricity rates: Detailed daily and monthly analysis

A non-homotheic demand system is used to present initial experimental results regarding Canadian responsiveness to residential time-of-use electricity rates by time-of-day and by month-of-year. In addition to measuring responsiveness in the traditional broad peak: off-peak aggregates, the detail of disaggregation is such that it allows an analysis of load shape responsiveness at critical hours coincident with the specific peaks of the distributing utilities and at boundary hours adjacent to the system-generation peak. The paper identifies particular rate structures which perform best at leveling load during municipalitiesʹ critical peak hours and during specific months. A look a boundary-hour responses generally reveals no problems regarding new peak creation. Peak reductions in the summer are marginally larger than those in the winter.