Irrigation Customer Profile

Irrigation Load Profiles contain an annual load shape developed from a 1991 load research study performed at NorthWestern Energy. The 1991 data has been shifted to 1998 using a calendar rotation that matches Mondays to Mondays, Tuesdays to Tuesdays, and so on. November through April irrigation loads are normally minimal. However, profiles have been provided for these months to allow for the possibility of a meter read being taken that indicates consumption. The profiles for these months will spread energy evenly throughout the settlement period. The irrigation profile from April through October reflects the traditional patterns of use and will be used for settlement without adjustment for weather or water conditions.

This file reflects Mountain Daylight Savings time beginning at 2:00 a.m. on April 5and ending at 2:00 a.m. on October 25. All remaining hours are Mountain Standard Time.

Using the Irrigation Profile

The following steps explain one method of estimating the hourly load profile for a target irrigation customer (target customer can be one or the sum of multiple customers):

Use knowledge of a target customer’s usage such as billing data to estimate energy for the desired month.
Calculate typical customer usage for the month from the profile data:

Calculate the energy for each day in the selected month by summing the 24 values in the load profile.

Sum the energies for the days in the month to arrive at the monthly energy for the typical customer.

Calculate the ratio of the target customer (calculated in step1) to the typical customers energy (calculated in step 2).
To calculate the hourly schedule for a target customer on a specific day: select the day from the irrigation profiles and multiply each hour by the target customer ratio from step 3.
To determine the load profile, multiply the demand profile from step 4 by the customer class loss multiplier.

Open Irrigation Customer Load CSV File.