# Fluctuation analysis of electric power loads in Europe: Correlation multifractality vs. Distribution function multifractality

## TL;DR

This study investigates the multifractal properties of European power load time series, revealing consistent multifractality across countries and linking spectral differences to production and trade factors.

## Contribution

It introduces an improved multifractal analysis method with robustness checks, providing new insights into the multifractal nature of power loads and their relation to energy production and trade.

## Key findings

- All datasets show multifractality in autocorrelation and distribution functions.
- Differences between countries are reflected in the width and peak of multifractal spectra.
- Multifractal characteristics relate to production portfolios and import/export dependencies.

## Abstract

We analyze the time series of the power loads of the 35 separated countries publicly sharing hourly data through ENTSO-E platform for more than 5 years. We apply the Multifractal Detrended Fluctuation Analysis for the demonstration of the multifractal nature, autocorrelation and the distribution function fundamentals. Additionally, we improved the basic method described by Kanterhardt, et al using uniform shuffling and surrogate the datasets to prove the robustness of the results with respect to the non-linear effects of the processes. All the datasets exhibit multifractality in the distribution function as well as in the autocorrelation function. The basic differences between individual states are manifested in the width of the multifractal spectra and in the location of the maximum. We present the hypothesis about the production portfolio and the export/import dependences.