United KingdomEnergy and utilities2025 – ongoingNational Energy System Operator
Quartz Solar forecasting in the electricity control room
NESO integrated AI solar forecasts into control-room operations, with its supplier reporting 2.8 times greater accuracy
Problem
Weather forecasts updated every few hours could miss rapid changes in cloud cover and solar output. NESO needed better short-term predictions for grid balancing.
Approach
Open Climate Fix developed Quartz Solar with NESO's forecasting team. It combined machine learning with satellite imagery and weather data, refining forecasts minute by minute. Following testing, NESO integrated it into scheduling and real-time control.
Results
Takeaway
Forecast accuracy and financial savings were different measures: the supplier reported fewer large errors, while annual avoided costs were estimates.
Categories
- Size
- Large enterprise
- Industry
- Energy and utilities
- Business function
- Production and quality
- Innovation type
- Process innovation
- AI technology
- Predictive analytics and ML
- Adoption
- Partner co-development
- Evidence
- Vendor case study
Sources
Source summaries
Open Climate Fix reported operational integration and halved large forecasting errors. It estimated annual avoided imbalance costs of £30 million.
Full details are in the original sources.