We’re halfway through the American-Made Net Load Forecasting Prize, with more than 70 teams battling it out to see whose probabilistic forecasts are best! At the halfway point of the competition, Quartz is in the lead, with Pearl in second place, and Turquoise rounding out the third-place spot.
Each team has been submitting day-ahead forecasts every day for locations in Hawaii, Oregon, Texas, and Georgia. The forecasts are then compared against actual net load data (provided by four partner utilities) using the open-source Solar Forecast Arbiter platform. This makes the Net Load Forecasting Prize one of the largest and most realistic forecast competitions to date!
The leaderboard tab on HeroX shows the rankings for each of the four locations, with each team listed as an anonymous gemstone pseudonym. The rankings below show the cumulative results across all locations.
Some notable highlights from the Net Load Forecasting Prize so far include:
- Over 1 million forecast data points have been evaluated so far using the Solar Forecast Arbiter.
- The teams include commercial forecast providers, startups, and 25 universities from across the U.S.
- Locations with high solar penetration (e.g., Hawaii) have been the most challenging to forecast, due to the net load increasing significantly as behind-the-meter solar generation decreases from passing clouds. Unlike deterministic forecasts, the probabilistic forecasts can capture this uncertainty, as shown in this example:
Check out the leaderboard tab for full standings in each of the locations and stay tuned for weekly updates!
