Short-range forecasting for energy

Abstract

Short-range forecasts for periods on the order of hours to days and up to two weeks ahead are necessary to smoothly run transmission and distribution systems, plan maintenance, protect infrastructure and allocate units. In particular, forecasting the renewable energy resources on a day-to-day basis enables integration of increasing capacities of these variable resources. This chapter describes the basics of this short-range forecasting, beginning with the observation-based "nowcasting" of the first 15 minutes and ranging up to two weeks using numerical weather prediction. We discuss how blending multiple forecasts can increase accuracy and how probabilistic forecasts are being used to quantify the forecast uncertainty.