Leveraging forecasting techniques for power procurement and improving grid stability: A strategic approach

Indian Electricity act introduced the open access system to avoid the monopoly in the power system. Open access system made the users get power at cheaper cost, but at month(s) ahead estimating the required power quantum of 96-time blocks (15 minutes each) of the day became a major challenge for the users. Required quantum depends on various parameters like area i.e., industrial area, residential area, agricultural area, day of the week i.e., weekday, weekend, public holiday, time of the day i.e., peak hours, non-peak hours, weather i.e., summer, winter, cloudy, rainy etc. and combinations of all these parameters. Some of these parameters like the area and week of the day are certain but some parameters like the exact weather are not certain in advance. Any advance estimation of the load with uncertain parameters is bound to be inaccurate, but the users will lose out on the opportunity of getting assured allocation if they don't participate in the open access in advance. The inaccuracy of forecasting the load in advance is bringing losses to the open access users in the form of hefty penalties for deviating from the original schedule. These deviations, in turn, cause power grid instability. This paper presents a strategy of forecasting the load and participating in the Short Term Open Access at various stages to minimize the losses for the users and to maintain the grid stability.