RELIABILITY: KEY TO RENEWABLE ENERGY PRODUCTION WORLDWIDE SOLAR POWER DEMAND has been experiencing exponential growth over the past decade. Solar PV is predicted to become the most important source of energy for electricity production in a large part of the world by 2030. Although improvements in technologies have increased storage capacity and made solar energy cheaper to generate, the variable nature of solar generation poses significant challenges for integration into the power grids. However renewable energy production forecasting can help energy providers with network planning, load forecasting and operational visibility. The key is to ensure that network operators make confident decisions based on accurate and reliable insights. Weatherzone Business, a DTN company, and in partnership with Solcast, is a trusted partner for renewable energy production forecasting serving more than 60 per cent of operational solar farms in Australia’s National Electricity Market (NEM). The company uses an ensemble of weather and solar models and advanced technology to provide a sophisticated cloud identification and forecast for the solar industry. This comprehensive forecast improves load and demand forecasts, manages solar-related network congestion and voltage changes, trade of wholesale power and manages virtual power plants and microgrids for small-scale photovoltaic systems as well as large-scale solar power plants.
Grasstops to rooftops challenge load prediction Rooftop PV is the fastest growing in Australia’s energy, with more than 3GW of new rooftop PV installations during 2020. The now largest renewables energy generator in the NEM has also brought new challenges for load forecasting. The variable nature of rooftop PV and the unknowns of generation versus consumption means that understanding the total output into the grid is essential.
Rooftop PV
forecasting decisions. The company uses live data as a realistic real-time proxy for measured rooftop PV output, and forecast data to guide daily network operation decisions. By using historic grid aggregation data for model training and forecast data as an input to model the rooftop PV aspect, network operations can understand annual averages for long term network and load modelling.
Large scale solar Large scale solar which is better connected, also poses its own challenges for network operators. Fronts or cloud bands can bring large changes in solar and wind, which can result in large concurrent ramps in energy from Renewable Energy Zones. Having a better understanding of how weather systems are developing in real-time improves forecasting for real-time dispatch, allowing renewable energy generators to reduce penalties and manage storage.
Better data, better prediction Weatherzone uses high-resolution satellite imagery, irradiance modelling and installed capacities to create one forecast. Recent advancements in technology have improved data delivery to provide faster and more detailed insights. The Weatherzone Nowcasting system delivers at 1-2km resolution, updating every 10 minutes with fields such as temperature, wind, rain, cloud and lightning. There are customised options for companies that need even more precise details of individual cloud impacts up to 10 minutes ahead. The convergence of an increasing focus on renewable energies, as well as the decreasing cost of production, has placed solar energy as a primary solution to reduce carbon emissions. This means regulators, businesses and the public will increasingly depend on and expect reliable generation. The renewable energy production forecast created by Weatherzone and Solcast supports solar network providers with customised information to confidently plan short and long-term renewable energy generation. For more information, please contact us at
Weatherzone’s customised grid aggregation product provides accurate load and consumption insights needed to make these critical load
business@weatherzone.com.au www.weatherzone.com.au
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