Forecasting

Forecasting is a must for companies (according to Encast).

The power grid should always be balanced. That means that the supply and demand of electricity on the grid should remain the same. To ensure this, forecasts are used for both the supply and the demand. The funny thing is, neither the generator of solar/wind electricity nor the biggest buyers are involved in forecasting and do not have any insights in the reports. Everyone operates under the idea that electricity is available at all times. The reality, however, is that the power grid has been flooded and congestion occurs more often. TenneT has to intervene to solve the imbalance, and has to store an increasing amount of power to ensure that this is still possible. This is expensive and is getting more and more expensive every year. Among other factors, this is because of:

• The rapid increase of electricity yield by solar and wind production:
  • The production is not constant and has high peaks and lows. At night there is no solar production and even in The Netherlands there is not always wind available. To support these peaks and lows a lot of capacity is required on the grid.
  • Wind- and big solar farms are often placed in rural areas. Consequently, the distance between the production and consumption has increased. Electricity has to be transported over bigger distances;
• The closing of centrally placed coal-fired plants (Amsterdam, Rotterdam) and gas-fired plants (currently too expensive);
• The rise of electric transportation (currently a small factor, but is rapidly increasing). Electric transportation demands a large capacity for each charge;
• New residential constructions, new data centres in the Randstad area and making houses gas-free etc.

No insight

New connections are hard to create, as Netbeheer Nederland reveals. Companies, therefore, have no insight into their imbalance and usually no knowledge of their imbalance expenses

Until a year ago, companies often got charged a fixed rate for the storage of their production imbalance. This is no longer sustainable, and these invisible expenses are currently rapidly rising. In electricity contracts (the Power Supply of Power Purchase Agreements) imbalance is often described vaguely, and the risk is entirely for the producer and/or consumer. However, they do not have insight into this data. Encast’s solution is for companies to be more involved in the forecast of their production and consumption to ensure that the imbalance is reduced as much as possible. A smaller imbalance often ensures lower electricity expenses and helps the electricity grid to sustain a better balance.

Forecasting solar, wind and consumption

The forecasting by Encast works per meter (main meter, gross production meter, inverter). Per location we make multiple forecasts both for production and consumption. Encast’s forecasts are created with Artificial Intelligence & Machine learning models. Per forecast we operate multiple models constantly. We make forecasts for both the day ahead and intraday market. Our models are supplied with various weather data feeds and historical production information for your solar or wind parks and/or consumption data to predict the upcoming three days. Our forecast is on a quarterly basis and is updated four times a day based on the latest insights. This ensures that you can control proactively and can see your own imbalance, irrespective of your supplier.

This has the following advantages:

• When you only produce electricity, you can see what your imbalance is and the accompanied expenses with your own forecast. Based on this, you can:
  • Check the imbalance, charged by your supplier and/or BRP;
  • Agree with your supplier and/or BRP that you will use your own forecast for the payment of your own yield;
  • Calculate when to invest in a battery.
  • When you use electricity yourself, with the forecast of your own yield and consumption, you can:
    • Ensure it is connected properly. You can optimise the ‘greening’ of your electricity consumption and as long as your yield is higher than your consumption, you can save on energy tax, ODE, transport expenses and the margin of your supplier. Simultaneously, you will receive a return on your solar panel or windmill investment.
    • When you have subtenants on your address, you can sell a potential surplus of electricity to your tenants. You can install loading poles or check if a battery might be interesting for you.
    • Portfolio: your own forecasting is especially interesting when you have several solar and/or wind parks. By combining the forecasts into a portfolio forecast, you can reduce your total imbalance. The forecast is never 100% accurate, and the differences will cancel each other out.
    • Intraday: companies with a own production portfolio or a big volume it is interesting to trade additional on the EPEX Intraday market per 15 minutes. Therefore, Encast by default provides an intraday forecast. This enables you to see if and when it is profitable to make additional trades and further reduce your imbalance.