14 research outputs found
Communal residential laundry washing and drying - can it provide demand-side electrical load flexibility?
Changes in lifestyle have led to increased use
and ownership rates of domestic appliances
resulting in increasing electrical consumption
in the residential sector. An important element
of this consumption is due to domestic
washing and drying of laundry. Given current
and predicted ownership rates, the market for
drying facilities is still not fully saturated and
electrical demand for these functions will
therefore increase. This paper looks at energy
loads for laundering in high density housing
such as blocks of flats and explores the
benefits of communal facilities. Benefits of
such facilities include reduced high humidity
levels and the mitigation of decreased indoor
air quality associated with indoor drying of
laundry in individual dwellings. However from
the perspective of integrating microgeneration
into buildings, communal facilities may
facilitate increased flexibility in the electrical
demand profile, hence better complementing
low carbon and localised energy supplies.
In order to investigate the possible effects on
the electric demand load profile, this paper
presents the scenario of a hypothetical
housing block and analyses the effect of
moving from washing and drying in individual
households to communal facilities. The study
includes the effects of appliance energy efficiency
improvements and increased
ownership rates. Results obtained show that
communal laundering is successful in terms of
time-shifting and hence lowering of peak
electrical demand but is ineffective in reducing
consumption.peer-reviewe