22 November 2024

Predico: collaborative forecasting platform

Information on this page is a subject to further studies and analysis

A platform designed to enhance forecasting accuracy and efficiency in the energy industry by introducing a multilateral, collaborative market for renewable energy forecasts.

What is Predico?

Predico is a collaborative forecasting market platform enabling entities with common interests to procure and sell forecasts. The platform was developed to lower overhead costs for all parties involved by leveraging market mechanisms and ensemble forecasting to improve forecasting accuracy and properly align forecaster incentives.

Why participate as a forecast buyer?

Accuracy: Predico is more accurate than standard bilateral contracting for three main reasons:

Ensembles outperform individual forecasts because they:
Balance out bias and overfitting

Combine information

Minimize extreme errors

Are more reliable for the buyer through redundancy, and less demanding for the individual forecasters (no SLAs)
Markets outperform bilateral contracts because they:
Reward accurate outside views

Align remuneration with outcomes through performance-based compensation:

Increases competition and innovation

Incentivizes continuous improvement

Incentivize accuracy

Lower overhead costs for everyone.

Provide larger upside to accurate forecasters than bilateral contracts at a lower cost to buyers

Are able to adapt dynamically to changing circumstances, e.g. energy market dynamics for interconnector forecasts

Enable scale diversity. Small and large providers compete equally
Simplicity & Efficiency:

Buy multiple forecasts under one contract without additional overhead costs related to market research, forecaster evaluation, and procurement.

Why participate as a forecast provider?

Remuneration

Remuneration by forecast buyers based on performance. Good forecasts earn good money.
Simplicity & Efficiency

Provide forecasts through a single contract, reducing overhead costs related to marketing, sales, and legal negotiations.
Market Access

Gain access to a larger market without the need for additional sales efforts.
Zero SLAs

Standard forecasting contracts often have onerous service level and reliability requirements, but on a multilateral market without an SLA, you can avoid penalties and staffing requirements associated with such traditional contracts.

How Predico works and how to get involved

How does Predico work?
For Buyers: Create a market or participate in an existing one to receive skill-weighted aggregate market forecasts.

For Forecasters: Submit forecasts to the market and be remunerated. Non-commercial forecasters may also participate.
How do I become a participant?

If you are a forecast buyer interested in participating in a market, contact predico@elia.be. For the moment, Predico is at proof-of-concept stage, meaning that participants cannot create markets independently.

If you are a forecaster interested in participating in a market, you can register by contacting us on predico@elia.be. After registering, you will be able to submit forecasts via an HTTP request. The API documentation can be found at Predico REST API (inesctec.pt). There is also a Python client which simplifies the interaction with the platform.

Project timeline

November 2024 - March 2025: Test phase by running a proof of concept for the Belgian offshore wind production

March 2025: Opening the platform to external buyers and markets.

Participate in the Belgian Offshore Wind Generation Market

Our first market is for Belgian offshore wind energy generation.

Go-live: November 2024.
Market value: €7k/month for total remuneration. This amount would be spread between forecasters participating in the market based on their accuracy rank and information contribution. Realistically, the best forecaster on the market could earn about €3k/month from the forecast. More details can be found in the documentation.
Target variable (also available on Predico): The ‘measured and upscaled’ value is published at the following address.
Resolution: 15 mins
Horizon: Forecast at 10:00 European Central Time on D-1 for day D
To be updated every hour for the same timespan (D 00:00 CET to D 23:00 CET)
The target variable: The sum of all generation coming from the Belgian offshore wind area, not from a single wind farm.
Forecast type: Probabilistic: P10, P50, P90.

Tips for forecasting this value:

The historical values are available on Predico or Elia's Open Data Portal here.
The near-real time values are available on Elia's Open Data Portal here.
Wind turbines are unavailable sometimes. The schedules can be found here and here.
We are the TSO and do not own or operate the turbines, only the lines. Therefore we don’t have the data about the wind turbines themselves. But you can start here to have a look at the wind farms in question.
Note that on 22/05/2024 the data format for the above links changed: older data are also available on the Elia Open Data portal.
Wind generation seems less correlated with system imbalance than solar. This means that the wind turbine operators don't react to imbalance markets as much (although the BRPs might have wind and solar in their portfolios and co-optimize). But in general this is a good thing for wind generation forecasting. But do be aware of the balancing market and how that affects operations.
Bear in mind that above a certain wind speed, the turbines cut out as a safety measure. How this is done depends on the wind farm operator but is important for wind generation.
Wind gusts or gustiness are often useful to include as a feature.

How to register

We’re looking for forecasts which are equal or superior to our currently published forecast (available at the data link above).

Rules for participation can be found in the Terms and Conditions – please read them before contacting us.

To register, send an email to predico@elia.be, providing the following details:

If you wish to participate in the performance-based compensation aspect of the market:

Link to your forecasting company website.
Client references

If you are not an established forecasting company, please submit day-ahead forecast for Belgian offshore wind generation with your email application.

If you do not wish to participate in the performance-based compensation aspect of the market, but you do wish to submit forecasts, please confirm in writing in the email.

If all is in order, we will send you a registration link via email.

Platform connection details: Predico REST API (inesctec.pt).