Advanced Forecasting of Variable Renewable Power Generation

TARGET GROUP: POWER GENERATION FORECASTS

OBJECTIVES

·        To improve the weather and power forecasts for wind turbines and solar PV plants.

·        To develop new forecast products focusing specifically on grid stability.

SUMMARY

Accurate weather forecasting is crucial for integrating wind and solar power generating resources into the grid, especially at high penetration levels. It is a crucial, cost-effective tool available to both renewable energy generators and system operators. For weather-dependent renewable generators, like solar and wind power plants, the most critical scheduling input comes from weather forecasting data. Advanced weather forecasting methods take advantage of advances in digital technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI) and big data, to analyse live and historical weather data and make predictions. In fact, advanced weather forecasting is one of the main applications of AI in facilitating and improving VRE integration (for more information see Innovation landscape brief: Artificial Intelligence and Big Data. Driven by an increase in computing power and improvement in algorithms, power generation forecasts have become more accurate. In a similar vein, thanks to the increasing use of AI fuelled by big data, time granularity for short-term predictions has increased as well. These factors can greatly contribute to the integration of renewable power into the grid. Improving VRE generation forecasts on short-term and long-term timescales engenders a diverse set of benefits for various stakeholders in the power sector. At short timescales, accurate VRE generation forecasting can help asset owners and market players to better bid in the electricity markets, where applicable. Bids based on more accurate forecasts would reduce the risk of incurring penalties for imbalances (i.e. for not complying with the generation offered in the bid). For power system operators, accurate short-term VRE generation forecasting can improve unit commitment (operation scheduling of the generating units) and operational planning, increase dispatch efficiency, reduce reliability issues and, therefore, minimise the amount of operating reserves needed in the system.

REFERENCE

https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/scc.2020.0050