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U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Sampling methodologies for the commercial sector. Final report

Technical Report ·
OSTI ID:6368201

This report discusses survey techniques for collecting end-use data on commercial customers of an electric utility. It focuses on those aspects of a survey relating to the development of the sample design, including sampling frame development, sample size determination, population stratification for both separate domains of study and statistical precision, and the development of corresponding estimation procedures. This research draws substantially on work which the principal investigators did in 1981-1982 for the California Energy Commission and some of the major California utilities in planning and conducting commercial surveys. The report first discusses construction of a sampling frame and shows that utility billin records are the best source of information for a frame. Multiple accounts are identified as a major problem in constructing a frame. The report then discusses alternative procedures for obtaining estimates for designated subdivisions of the population for administrative purposes. The most effective procedure for this purpose is to stratify the population according to the desired subdivisions and to treat each stratum as a separate domain of study. Finally, four sampling schemes in which stratification is used to improve the statistical precision of estimates are compared. Estimates with highest precision are obtained with a model-based sample design where units are selected with probabilities proportional to their sizes.

Research Organization:
ADM Associates, Inc., Sacramento, CA (USA); Applied Management Sciences, Inc., Silver Spring, MD (USA)
OSTI ID:
6368201
Report Number(s):
EPRI-EA-3688; ON: TI85920072
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English