Peak demand
Peak demand: ‘Refers to the times of day when our electricity consumption is at its highest which, in the UK, occurs between 5-30pm to 6pm each weekday evening.’ Ref Climate Emergency Design Guide: How new buildings can meet UK climate change targets, published by the London Energy Transformation Initiative (LETI) in January 2020.
Zero carbon building, Performance standard, Version 2, Published by the Canada Green Building Council in March 2021, defines Peak demand as: ‘The building’s highest electrical load requirement on the grid, measured and reported in kW, reflecting any peak shaving impacts from demand management strategies including onsite renewable energy and energy storage.’
Planning our electric future: a White Paper for secure, affordable and low-carbon electricity, Glossary, published by the Department of Energy & Climate Change on 14 July 2011, suggests that peak load and peak demand are: ‘…used interchangeably to denote the maximum power requirement of a system at a given time, or the amount of power required to supply customers at times when need is greatest. They can refer either to the load at a given moment (e.g. a specific time of day) or to averaged load over a given period of time (e.g. a specific day or hour of the day).’
The RIBA Passivhaus Overlay, published by the RIBA in 2022, defines Peak Load (PL) as: ‘The heating load which has to be satisfied on either the coldest or cloudiest day of the year. Normally stated as W/m^2.’
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