Developing a Combined Operational Load Forecast
With the deep penetration of non-grid connected renewable generation and storage, electric vehicle charging, smart load control and time-of-use rates…
The Story is in the Residuals
In any field that involves heaps of data and information, details are everything. Load forecasting is no exception. If you’ve spent any amount of…
2020 Forecasting Meetings – Registration Now Open!
The 18th annual Energy Forecasting/EFG Meeting will be in New Orleans, Louisiana on April 22 – April 24 with optional one-day training workshops on…
Rooftop Solar and Short-Term Models – Advanced Methods
Under a California Energy Commission (CEC) study, Itron evaluated alternative approaches to incorporating forecasts of behind-the-meter solar PV…
Improving Efficiency and Accuracy with Forecasting in the Cloud
In today’s increasingly dynamic energy market, it is important for utilities to have access to accurate and timely energy forecasts. Whether…
It’s a DER World, We’re Just Living in It
If you’re reading this and you’re a load forecaster like myself (or know a thing or two about load forecasting), then you are well aware of the…
2019 Benchmarking Survey
The end of October brings something for everyone. Fall foliage for adults, Halloween candy for children and Itron’s Annual Benchmarking Survey…
Averaging the Weather First or Averaging the Energy Forecast
There is a question that has long vexed me: If we calculate a normal series of weather variables by averaging them first and running them through a…
Will an Electric Vehicle Be Cheaper than a Gasoline Vehicle?
If you’re in the market for a new vehicle, chances are you have thought about the possibility of an electric car. They’re all over the news and…
Annual Forecasting Benchmark Survey Results
Our third seminar of the year reveals the results of our annual benchmarking survey. This survey has been conducted since 2012 and presents a broad…
Where Did Durbin and Watson Go Wrong?
I’m sure you have all been there—the spot where you mention autocorrelation and the Durbin-Watson statistic. I saw this recently in some testimony…
Holidays Are No Vacation for the Load Forecaster
Summer has arrived. While your friends are frolicking at the beach, you are struggling in a darkened cubicle to ensure that the load forecast…
Dates and Serial Numbers: Might As Well Leap
In Excel and MetrixND, dates are actually serial numbers. This is obvious in Excel when you format a cell containing a date as a number. In the…
When is the R² Not the R²?
A recently received support email contains a riddle. “When I build a regression model in Excel and remove the intercept, I get a different R²…
Rooftop Solar PV and Smart Streetlights Survey
Itron recently surveyed the load forecasting community concerning the possible impact of rooftop solar PV installations on utility operations. There…
The Mile-High 2019 ISO Forecasting Summit
They have a saying in Denver – “If you don’t like the weather, wait five minutes.” While that is clearly an exaggeration, it’s not too far off from…
Improving Financial Analysis with AMI Data
Smart meter data is more granular and more timely than monthly billing data. Access to this data supports a paradigm shift in forecasting processes,…
A Few Thoughts on P-Values
I recently read an article about P-Values that led to some discussion with my Itron colleagues, along with some thoughts on the matter. In the…
2019 Annual Energy Forecasting Meeting
Two pre-conference classes. Three conference days. Eighteen industry presentations. Forty-nine companies. Sixty-nine attendees. These are…
Developing Net Load Uncertainty Forecasts to Support System Operations
Today, the deep penetration of renewable generation resources system operators are requiring new tools to place reasonable confidence bands around…
It’s All the Same, Only the Names Will Change
Last year, Itron was contracted by a small utility (about 11,000 customers) to construct a 10-year-ahead load forecast for capacity planning. I was…
Capped vs. Uncapped Degree Days
In energy modeling, we often utilize spline variables to capture the non-linear relationship between consumption and temperature. These variables…
Leveraging a Waterfall Approach to Explain the Load Forecast
Our first brown bag seminar of the year is entitled “Leveraging a Waterfall Approach to Explain the Load Forecast”. This session introduces a…
2019 Forecasting Conferences – Register Today!
The 17th annual Energy Forecasting/EFG Meeting and Training will be hosted in Boston, Massachusetts on April 3-5 with optional one-day training…
A Consumer’s Perspective – Residential Solar with an Electric Vehicle
Recently, I wrote a blog on residential solar. In it, I mentioned that I needed at least a 6 kW system, but I installed a 7.25 kW system with 25…
When Does Humidity Make the Meter Spin?
For anyone that has tried to improve a model by changing the specification, you know it is very much a trial and error process. You create variables…
A Practitioner’s Guide to Short-term Load Forecast Modeling
Over the years, numerous clients have requested a “recipe book” for building powerful short-term load forecast models. This guide to Short-term Load…
Short-term Load Forecasting: A Practitioner’s Handbook
Our final brown bag seminar of the year—hosted on Tuesday, Dec. 4—is entitled “Short-term Load Forecasting: A Practitioner’s Handbook.” Ever wonder…
Aggregation Bias Strikes Again!
The issue of aggregation bias should not be a new concept to any of us in the energy forecasting world. In April, my colleague David Simons posted…
Odds and Sods
Probabilities and odds express the same information in different ways. In science and economics, people tend to think in terms of probabilities,…
What are Weather Groups?
If you’re a user of Itron’s Automated Demand Forecasting System, MetrixIDR, then chances are you’ve probably seen the words “Weather Groups” at some…
Residential Solar From a Consumer’s Perspective
I live in Southern California with a kid who runs the air conditioning like electricity is free and pretends that he lives in a frozen tundra. This…
Brown Bag Session: The Latest Energy Trends
Join us on Tuesday, Sept. 11 for our third Brown Bag seminar of the year as we reveal the results of our annual bench-marking survey. We are excited…
Market Trends That Will Drive the Next Evolution of Operational Load Forecasting Models
Grid operators schedule and dispatch generation resources to meet demand in as cost-effective manner as possible. In a perfect world, the least…
Will the Solar Panel Tariff Kill Solar Adoption?
The recent U.S. administration’s 30 percent tariff on imported solar cells and modules has not been well received by the solar industry. Effective…
A Simple Approach for Addressing Behind-the-Meter Solar Generation
I was recently asked to account for behind-the-meter (BTM) solar generation in a set of day-ahead hourly electric models. Fundamentally, the problem…
America’s Finest 2018 ISO Forecasting Summit
San Diego’s slogan is “America’s Finest City” and being fortunate enough to call this place my home for the past seven years, I see why. It has a…
Load Forecasting Using Machine Learning: Does the Hype Meet Reality?
It is easy to stub your toe on the voluminous literature available on machine learning when the question of how to improve your operational forecast…
2018 EFG Meeting Summary
Sometimes when I sit back and consider all the things that need to be done, I feel overwhelmed. The endless demands for regular work—like producing…
Upcoming Seminar: Budget Forecasting – A Practitioner’s Handbook
Our second brown bag seminar of the year is entitled “Budget Forecasting – A Practitioner’s Handbook.” This Brown Bag distills twenty-plus years of…
The Pitfalls and Pain of Aggregation Bias
As forecasters, averaging is something that we do a lot. We like averaging because it helps us filter out much of the noise in our data so that we…
Itron’s Integrated Energy Forecasting Framework
In today’s marketplace, incorporating the multitude of Distributed Energy Resources (DER) can make producing an accurate energy demand forecast very…
Daylight Saving Time: The Bane of the Load Forecaster
Sunrise and sunset times vary from summer to winter because of earth’s tilt with respect to its orbit around the sun. This difference is magnified at…
Take Our Annual Energy Survey
Itron’s forecasting group recently launched its annual energy survey. As we have done in previous years, Itron uses this survey to collect…
Ignore Missing Option
The Sum function in MetrixND seems like a complex way to make adding difficult. In a MetrixND transformation, numbers are added by joining variables…
Using Neural Networks to Build Robust Hourly Models
Our first brown bag seminar of the year is entitled, “Using Neural Networks to Build Robust Hourly Models.” Neural networks are flexible functional…
Multiplying Two Interval Series in MetrixLT
“Help” was the desperate cry of a MetrixLT user after the close of the workday. “I need to multiply two hourly interval data series in MetrixLT!”…
2018 Forecasting Workshop and Meeting Dates
The 2018 Itron Forecasting Workshops and Meetings have been scheduled. Registration for 101 is currently open at…
Forecasting New Technologies – When Nothing Else Works
In a recent project, we were asked to help settle a question. Which forecast is reasonable: One forecasting average annual system demand growth of…
An Unexpected Impact of the Solar Eclipse
On Aug. 21, 2017, people gathered across the continent to witness the first total solar eclipse visible from the contiguous United States since Feb.…
Load Research in an AMI World: Why? How? And Results.
Our final brown bag seminar of the year is entitled Load Research in an AMI World: Why? How? And Results. With market penetration of a range of new…
There’s More Than One Way to Round a Number
When we were in school, we all learned the general rule for rounding – if a significant digit is followed by a number that is greater than or equal…
The CEC Releases “Improving Short-term Load Forecasts by Incorporating Solar PV Generation” Interim Report
The California Energy Commission’s (CEC) Energy Research and Development Division supports energy research and development programs to spur…
Calculating an Average Annual Growth Rate in MetrixND
After finishing my forecast, I like to present forecast average annual growth rates. These results are calculated by converting the monthly forecast…
The Latest Energy Trends
Our third seminar of the year reveals the results of our annual benchmark survey. Survey participants receive a copy of the report with the findings.…
Using the Simulation Object Backward
I’m using the Simulation Object in MetrixND to weather normalize historic sales. When configured, the object allows me to simulate the model…
2018 Important Meeting Dates – Mark Your Calendars!
The Annual Energy Forecasting/EFG Meeting and Training will be in Austin, Texas on April 24-27 in 2018! The ISO/RTO/TSO Forecasting Summit will be…
Itron’s Michael Rufo Receives IEPEC’s Lifetime Achievement Award
Itron’s Michael Rufo, an executive consultant with the Consulting and Analysis group, was recently honored with the International Energy Program…
Computing a Weighted Average Wind Speed and Wind Direction Across Multiple Weather Stations
Often when we are developing weather variables to support day-ahead power and gas forecasting, we introduce wind speed as a standalone explanatory…
Looking Backward to Move Forward
For most things in life, I look forward to go forward. I keep my eyes on the road ahead. I look before I leap. I aim at my target. But this summer…
Seasonal Sales? Not a Problem.
There is a client who has a reporting issue problem. Let’s call him Ray. His annual sales are to be split into summer and winter sales, but on a…
Remember the 2017 ISO Forecasting Summit
This year’s 11th Annual ISO/RTO/TSO Forecasting Summit was held in San Antonio, Texas from May 16-18. Just like the defenders of the Alamo banded…
Common Challenges at the Energy Forecasters Meeting
Turning to her left, then right, Grace finds herself surrounded by strangers – men and women from across the United States; there’s even one from…
Free Forecasting Brown Bag Webinar
Now in our 11th year of hosting Itron’s popular, free hour-long internet seminars on a range of forecasting topics, we take great pride in helping…
A Grand View
The view from the 96th floor of the John Hancock Center is amazing. From here, cars are merely dots between the straight rows of lights and people…
Behind-The-Meter Solar Generation and Real-Time Load Forecasting – Part 3
In my blog posting “Behind-The-Meter Solar Generation and Real-Time Load Forecasting,” I presented four load forecasting challenges that have arisen…
Behind-The-Meter Solar Generation and Real-Time Load Forecasting – Part 2
In part on of this series, I presented four load forecasting challenges that have arisen as the result of deep penetration of behind-the-meter (BTM)…
The 2017 Annual Energy Forecasting/EFG Meeting and ISO/RTO/TSO Summit
The 15th Annual Energy Forecasting/EFG Meeting and Training will be in Chicago on April 26-28 with optional one-day training workshops on April 25.…
Behind-The-Meter Solar Generation and Real-Time Load Forecasting
Recently, I was invited to speak at a California Energy Commission (CEC) sponsored workshop on Research Needs for Renewable Energy Forecasting. The…
Annual Energy Survey
Itron’s forecasting group recently launched their Annual Energy Survey. As we have done in previous years, Itron is collecting information to assess…
FREE Forecasting Brown Bag Webinar
Itron continues to host its popular hour-long Internet seminars on a range of forecasting topics. We’re now in our 11th year! Itron is always at the…
Forecast Tests in MetrixND
Out-of-sample tests are a useful tool for seeing how well a model performs with data it hasn’t seen before (i.e., data that weren’t used to estimate…
HIRING: ERCOT Load Forecasting Senior Planning Analyst
One of our forecasting clients, ERCOT, is looking for a Senior Planning Analyst preferably with at least 5 years of experience. They're searching for…
Energy Forecasting Meeting – Call for Presentations
Forecasters tell Itron that there is no greater value than meeting with their peers. Itron understands the importance of these interactions and is…
The Economy and Electric Sales
Traditionally, the end of the year is a time to reflect and remember. So when the Federal Reserve raised interest rates in December as a vote of…
The BX Tab
MetrixND provides several options for determining whether a variable is useful. Typically, a model builder reviews the variable coefficients,…
What’s Happening with EV Sales?
With gas prices hovering just above $2 a gallon, there is less excitement and curiosity about electric vehicles (EV) as there has been in the past.…
Declining Residential Sales?
In the past three months, I’ve received three questions, all the same, “Why are my residential sales down?” There are several reasons why a company…
Free Itron Forecasting Brown Bag Seminars
Join us for our third brown bag of 2016 on Tuesday, Sept. 13 titled “2016 Forecast Accuracy Benchmarking Survey and Energy Trends,” where we’ll…
Who is Forecasting Long-Term Solar Generation?
In this last forecasting brown bag presentation on solar load forecasting, we asked participants who had developed a long-term solar load forecast…
Free Itron Forecasting Brown Bag Seminars
Since 2005, Itron has conducted its popular hour-long Internet brown bag seminars on a range of forecasting topics. Itron is always at the forefront…
2016 Energy Forecasters Meeting
From May 18 to 20, 62 energy forecasters representing 42 companies from across North America gathered in Scottsdale, Arizona to discuss the latest…
TVA Forecasting Specialist Positions Available
One of our forecasting clients, Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), located in Chattanooga, Tennessee, is hiring for two forecasting specialist…
Developing the Peak Day Dataset Using MetrixLT
I think of MetrixLT as a fancy load shape manipulator and calculator. While the software was originally designed to calibrate load shapes to monthly…
The Difference Between AR(1) and Lagged Dependent Terms
Recently, a utilities regulator tried replicating a client’s regression model used for forecasting customer growth. The regulator wished to build the…
Comparison of Peak Forecasting Methods Brown Bag Seminar Recap
On Tuesday, March 24, we held our first brown bag seminar of the year, “Comparison of Peak Forecasting Methods,” which provided an overview of peak…
Holiday Savings
With Christmas rapidly approaching and neighborhoods throughout North America intricately decorated with a variety of Christmas lights, I can’t help…