*5.4. Monthly Assessment*

The overall monthly performance of the proposed approach is analyzed in terms of the congestion duration, network peak load and total supplied energy. This ensures the efficiency of the approach for resolving the congestion while maintaining the quality of supply. Table 1 depicts the comparative values of the uncontrolled load, the price-based scheduling and the proposed tariff-based DR scheme. The congestion duration is considerably reduced with the proposed approach at the expense of a drop in supplied energy. This happens due to the fact that some of the flexible appliances shift their energy consumption at later hours (possibly the next day) and, hence, were not considered within the simulation time window. The average monthly energy cost of the end-users has been reduced for the proposed method, although the objective of the proposed approach is to tackle imminent congestion in the network, and not to reduce the energy cost of the end-users. In reality, the end-users will not have to face the effect, since the daily average of the tariff will be the same. In other words, they will keep paying the same amount for the network tariff as before. The change in the cost is generated from the differences in day-ahead price at corresponding time steps.

**Table 1.** Comparative monthly assessment among different schemes.


The effects are also evident in the monthly load duration curve, as shown in Figure 9. The controlled case demonstrates a notable reduction in the peak demand and shifts the loads when the network tariff is lower. Since the total energy consumption is of similar order, the comfort levels of the end-users were also ensured.

**Figure 9.** Monthly load duration curve.
