Hourly Electricity Demand Profiles for Each County in the Contiguous United States
This dataset provides estimated hourly electricity demand for each county in the contiguous United States from 2016-2023. The demand profiles represent the sum of two components: (1) Weighted averages of reported hourly demand profiles for North American Electric Reliability Corporation balancing authority (BA) regions and subregions, scaled to match annual estimates of county-level retail sales and direct use of electricity and weighted by the estimated percentage of county load served by each BA region or subregion. (2) Weighted averages of modeled hourly, county- and sector-level distributed photovoltaic (DPV) capacity factor profiles, scaled to match annual estimates of on-site consumption of DPV-generated electricity for each county and weighted by the percentage of consumption attributable to each sector
Annual county-level retail sales are estimated by aggregating utility-reported sales to the state level and allocating the results to counties according to each county's share of state population. Annual county-level direct use is calculated by aggregating power plant-reported direct use values. Annual county-level on-site consumption of DPV-generated electricity is estimated by aggregating utility-reported net metering data to determine the amount of DPV-generated electricity sold back to the grid for each state, subtracting those values from modeled state-level DPV generation estimates, and allocating the results to counties according to each county's share of statewide modeled DPV generation.
The open-source Python code used to develop this dataset is available at "Historical Load Data Repository" link below.
Complete Metadata
| @type | dcat:Dataset |
|---|---|
| accessLevel | public |
| bureauCode |
[
"019:20"
]
|
| contactPoint |
{
"fn": "Kodi Obika",
"@type": "vcard:Contact",
"hasEmail": "mailto:kodi.obika@nrel.gov"
}
|
| dataQuality |
true
|
| description | This dataset provides estimated hourly electricity demand for each county in the contiguous United States from 2016-2023. The demand profiles represent the sum of two components: (1) Weighted averages of reported hourly demand profiles for North American Electric Reliability Corporation balancing authority (BA) regions and subregions, scaled to match annual estimates of county-level retail sales and direct use of electricity and weighted by the estimated percentage of county load served by each BA region or subregion. (2) Weighted averages of modeled hourly, county- and sector-level distributed photovoltaic (DPV) capacity factor profiles, scaled to match annual estimates of on-site consumption of DPV-generated electricity for each county and weighted by the percentage of consumption attributable to each sector Annual county-level retail sales are estimated by aggregating utility-reported sales to the state level and allocating the results to counties according to each county's share of state population. Annual county-level direct use is calculated by aggregating power plant-reported direct use values. Annual county-level on-site consumption of DPV-generated electricity is estimated by aggregating utility-reported net metering data to determine the amount of DPV-generated electricity sold back to the grid for each state, subtracting those values from modeled state-level DPV generation estimates, and allocating the results to counties according to each county's share of statewide modeled DPV generation. The open-source Python code used to develop this dataset is available at "Historical Load Data Repository" link below. |
| distribution |
[
{
"@type": "dcat:Distribution",
"title": "Historical Load Data Repository",
"format": "HTML",
"accessURL": "https://github.com/NREL/HistoricalLoadData",
"mediaType": "text/html",
"description": "This repository will contain the process used to create historical county-level hourly load data used in NREL's ReEDS model."
},
{
"@type": "dcat:Distribution",
"title": "Historic Load Hourly 2016-2023 County.h5",
"format": "h5",
"mediaType": "application/octet-stream",
"description": "Estimated hourly electricity demand for each county in the contiguous United States from 2016-2023. Each column contains the hourly demand in megawatts (MW) for one county, with the column name being the county’s Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) code prepended with a "p" (e.g., "p36041" represents Hamilton County, NY). Time indices are in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) and use the hour ending time reporting convention. This dataset was updated on February 9, 2026 to correct an issue where the distributed photovoltaic (DPV) capacity factor profiles used to estimate on-site consumption of DPV-generated electricity were being attributed to the wrong counties.",
"downloadURL": "https://data.openei.org/files/8562/historic_load_hourly_2016_2023_county.h5"
}
]
|
| identifier | https://data.openei.org/submissions/8562 |
| issued | 2025-11-05T07:00:00Z |
| keyword |
[
"CONUS",
"DPV",
"United States",
"code",
"consumption",
"county",
"data",
"demand",
"direct use",
"distributed pv",
"electricity",
"electricity consumption",
"electricity demand",
"electricity profiles",
"energy",
"energy profiles",
"grid planning",
"modeling",
"planning",
"power",
"processed data",
"python",
"retail sales",
"weighted averages"
]
|
| landingPage | https://data.openei.org/submissions/8562 |
| license | https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
| modified | 2026-02-09T17:51:29Z |
| programCode |
[
"019:000",
"019:008",
"019:023"
]
|
| projectNumber | FY25 AOP 2.6.1.1 |
| projectTitle | Integrated Energy Futures |
| publisher |
{
"name": "National Renewable Energy Laboratory",
"@type": "org:Organization"
}
|
| spatial |
"{"type":"Polygon","coordinates":[[[-125.4514,24.5873],[-66.5318,24.5873],[-66.5318,49.2637],[-125.4514,49.2637],[-125.4514,24.5873]]]}"
|
| title | Hourly Electricity Demand Profiles for Each County in the Contiguous United States |
