Transpower model sought

A tool used by Transpower to forecast how much power is needed to keep the nation’s lights on should no longer be patched up, the company has concluded.

Transpower, responsible for a reliable and secure New Zealand electricity market, uses weather and other data to calculate every 30 minutes the power loads needed up to 15 days ahead.

However, the quality of forecasts in the complex system is understood to be deteriorating and staff sometimes need to override forecasts if they diverged too far from actual loads.

Rather than rebuild its forecasting tool, Transpower invited proposals for electricity demand modelling.

That was on the same day as thousands of homes had their power cut last month because not enough electricity was generated to meet record demand on a cold evening.

Inaccurate forecasting for the market is not understood to be central to what went wrong on August 9, but ways to improve the system are being considered by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment in its review.

Environment Minister David Parker told Parliament last month Transpower’s peak demand forecasting on August 9 was there or thereabouts.

"They got pretty close."

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