Abstract
The purpose of this study is to identify the load profile of the residential rural and urban residential consumers in Bihor County. This profiling will be a first step in identifying the appropriate load profile forecasting method for the specific consumer profile. Also, this profiling could help develop policies on increasing consumer energy awareness, or adapting the implementation of smart meters in rural or urban areas and applying some specific hourly prices. This load profiling will be assessed versus the EU profiles and conclusions will be drawn on this comparison. This study was developed using a multi annual database including consumers from a few cities and tens of villages in Bihor County. Each database was filtered for noise and absurd values. The nature of power consumption is well known for its temporal variability and this paper will attempt to highlight this essential aspect of load profiling.