Operational Forecasting – Use Cases and Implementation Challenges

A Short-Term Forecasting Engine (STFE) is a foundational Advanced Application that provides operational forecasting of load consumption and DER generation to drive other Advanced Applications. These applications are currently deployed as part of Southern California Edison's (SCE's) grid modernization effort to facilitate the large-scale DER deployment and to fully harness their potential for improving reliability and market integration. This paper details STFE's practicalities and describes STFE supported Use Cases at SCE to improve Situational Awareness, restore the system quickly after unplanned outages, facilitate maintenance work during planned outages, unload overloaded circuit segments, and integrate DERs into the wholesale market. We also discuss challenges SCE is facing with its STFE implementation and potential solutions. A major challenge is accounting for forecast inaccuracies due to (1) the unpredictable behavior of Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) and (2) weather forecast errors, especially for forecast horizons extending to weeks and months.