Uncertainty Forecasting in a Nutshell: Prediction Models Designed to Prevent Significant Errors

It is in the nature of chaotic atmospheric processes that weather forecasts will never be perfectly accurate. This natural fact poses challenges not only for private life, public safety, and traffic but also for electrical power systems with high shares of weather-dependent wind and solar power production. To facilitate a secure and economic grid and market integration of renewable energy sources (RES), grid operators and electricity traders must know how much power RES within their systems will produce over the next hours and days. This is why RES forecast models have grown over the past decade to become indispensable tools for many stakeholders in the energy economy. Driven by increased grid stability requirements and market forces, forecast systems have become tailored to the end user's application and already perform reliably over long periods. Apart from a residually moderate forecast error, there are single extreme-error events that greatly affect grid operators.