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Insight Horizon Media

What is an energy load profile?

Author

Daniel Johnson

Published Feb 28, 2026

What is an energy load profile?

In simple terms, an energy load profile (often just called a load profile) is used to calculate both how much electricity your property needs each day – and how much you may need at any one time. On average, how many hours per day is it used? (in both summer and winter)

What is the load shape profile of the facility?

A load shape reveals information that helps building owners and facility managers detect potential energy waste and diagnose the possible reason for it. For example, load shapes can be evaluated to determine if they are consistent with the shape one would expect for the target building business or building type.

How much electricity does a building consume?

According to the Department of Energy (DOE), the average number of kilowatt hours per square foot for a commercial building is approximately 22.5. Here’s the breakdown of how that energy is used: Approximately 8 kWh/square foot are consumed by refrigeration & equipment.

What is daily load profile?

In a power system, a load curve or load profile is a chart illustrating the variation in demand/electrical load over a specific time. Generation companies use this information to plan how much power they will need to generate at any given time.

What is hourly load profile?

Load profiling is the process of allocating a customer’s accumulated kWh over a billing cycle to the individual hours in that cycle. Through load profiling, customers without hourly meters are able to participate in the electric retail market.

How do you calculate load profile?

How To Self-Assess Your Building’s Load Profile

  1. Load Factor (%) = Kilowatt-hours (kWh) / (Maximum Demand Peak (kW) x Days in the period x 24 hours)
  2. 100% – There is little or no variation between high and low demand usage and the only room for saving is by reducing your overall baseload.

How many kW does an office use?

Although most businesses use between 15,000 and 25,000 kWh of energy a year, the average usage and cost of energy is different depending on the size of the business and how it uses energy.

How many kW does a factory use?

On average, manufacturing facilities use 95.1 kilowatt-hours ( kWh ) of electricity and 536,500 Btu of natural gas per square foot each year, though actual consumption varies widely across subsectors.

What is average load?

By the name, the Average Load is the average power consumed by the load in a given period, usually, a day or a month. It also represents the average power generated by the power station during the same period (also neglecting transmission losses).

What is peak loading?

Peak load is a period of time when electrical power is needed a sustained period based on demand. Also known as peak demand or peak load contribution, it is typically a shorter period when electricity is in high demand. Also known as continuous load, base load requirements do not change as much.

How many kWh does a small office use?

Each year small and midsize office buildings in the US (those under 100,000 square feet) use an average of 15 kilowatt-hours ( kWh ) of electricity and 38 cubic feet of natural gas per square foot.

How much electricity does an office use?

In the US , large office buildings (those with more than 100,000 square feet) use an average of 20 kilowatt-hours ( kWh ) of electricity and 24 cubic feet of natural gas per square foot annually.