Whether for wind power or photovoltaic systems, for both types of renewable energy it is important to know what will be fed in in the future. Thus large-scale operators of transmission and distribution networks, as well as municipalities and energy suppliers, need to know at a lower level how much electricity they can feed into their grid from renewable energy.

Grid control – making energy predictable

Wind and sun are not constant variables – on sunny days at weekends, for example, when industry needs fewer resources, more solar power is available than on rainy weekdays. But current and imminently expected feed-in volumes of solar power are hard to identify. How do network operators know how much of the share of renewable energy is to be fed into the grid at any given time?

This is where the regional forecasts of enercast come in, which predict exactly that. They enable active grid control and make renewable energy predictable. High costs for energy offsets can be saved and system security is ensured.

Prediction for wind and PV

enercast forecasts the energy produced by wind power or PV systems for a specific area in precise 15 minute slots and up to 240 hours into the future – in Germany and worldwide. The basis for this is the enercast PV measuring network, satellite data and data from network operators. The specific performance of an installation always depends on the size, the location and the meteorological conditions in the relevant region.

Quarterly forecast

In discussions of regional forecasts, a distinction is usually drawn between so-called week-ahead forecasts, which predict the coming week, day-ahead forecasts which predict the coming day, and intraday forecasts, which provide forecasts for the current day. With respect to PV systems, enercast also offers a real-time forecast, which is updated quarterly and is extremely precise with a deviation of 1.75 percent from the real value. The data is delivered automatically and at regular intervals.

Trading on the electricity market

However, it is not only for network operators that the regional forecasts of enercast are of interest: traders on stock exchanges also benefit from high-quality forecasts for whole countries or sub-regions. They trade day-ahead or intraday with short-term tradable electricity from renewable energy.

Thanks to enercast forecasts, they are able to assess how much wind and solar energy will be available on the electricity market on the same or the next day and, consequently, their trade strategy. The higher the forecast quality, the more profitably the electricity generated by PV systems and wind parks can be traded.