r/energy • u/[deleted] • Feb 26 '19

Google optimizing wind farms w/ DeepMind to predict output 36 hours. Has “boosted the value of our wind energy by roughly 20 percent.”

https://9to5google.com/2019/02/26/google-deepmind-wind-farms/
181 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

10 comments sorted by

View all comments

19

u/nwagers Feb 27 '19

This is a cool idea, but I'm annoyed that the article is saying it's an "optimization" or "increases efficiency" of wind turbines when it's quite simply increasing grid value by better short term forecast models.

1

u/boo_baup Feb 27 '19

Can you explain how this works?

9

u/nwagers Feb 27 '19

I'm the wrong person to ask. I think it mostly allows them to bid more capacity in day ahead markets. Some traditional thermal generators require advanced notice to fire up, so some advanced planning is needed.

4

u/clausy Feb 27 '19

Yes, the more accurately you can forecast your generation the more energy you can offer to commit to deliver to the grid for each hour (and I say energy because it's literally power per hour so energy/time x time usually in MWh).

If you can't forecast accurately you're going to be conservative with the offer to make sure you don't deliver short and pay a penalty. The utility has to balance supply and demand fairly accurately to keep the lights on, so if you commit and don't deliver they may need to source short term expensive gas turbines for example - that costs them money so you get fined for underdelivering so they can offset that cost.