Case Study: Wind power forecasts for electricity markets

Precise forecasts for wind power plants support ENGIE to act flexible and fore-sighted on the electricity markets.

 

Challenge

 

Wind power – clean, competitive and available at all locations. As one of the fastest growing energy sources, the benefits of wind energy are numerous. Wind-generated electricity is a cost-effective and renewable way to produce energy and supply large areas without being dependent on fossil fuel.

 

Integrating this intermittent power source into the electricity grid is one of the challenges that energy providers as ENGIE have to face. “The development of wind power is one of our priorities“, confirms Lorenzo de Menten, Quantitative Analyst at ENGIE.

 

“Worldwide ENGIE has nearly 4.300 MW of installed wind power capacity.“ The challenge is to manage the variability of wind generation in order not to affect grid reliability. Energy providers have to avoid market risks – instead, only making sound decisions in this volatile market will serve the purpose.

 

Solution

 

In order to determine wind feed-in volumes for the present and in the short-term, ENGIE obtains precise forecasts for wind power from enercast. It is used for the group’s wind power plants installed in several European countries.

 

enercast provides ENGIE with robust forecasts for the next 15 days, which are updated every hour. Furthermore, in the short-term the energy provider gets an update every 15 minutes to be able to fit the decisions on short-term.

 

The system uses forecasts from European weather services, which are designed for the individual plant with the help of artificial neural networks. The results are robust power forecasts, which can be regularly updated. The addition of a plant’s real measurement data contributes to increases in the precision of the forecast.

 

Benefit

 

By actively supporting the energy transition, ENGIE is preparing for the sustainable energy world of tomorrow. Its innovative and tailored solutions meet their clients’ needs. “We want our customers to make the most of their energy – everyone wants a clean, flexible and stable energy supply“, says Lorenzo de Menten.

 

“We have to balance our power position at any moment to avoid market risk in a volatile power market. Weather is continuously changing as such power volumes produced by wind and solar parks are not stable.“ enercast helps ENGIE to get a clearer view on the future outcome of their parks and to be ready to act on market.

 

“It allows us to reduce our risk due to volume uncertainty and volatile day-ahead and intraday market prices“, explains Lorenzo de Menten. “We are also better balanced before production de-livery as such we minimize our imbalance cost.“