Is anyone aware of good sources of higher resolution models? Hourly resolution like this model provides doesn’t help much now that energy markets have moved to 15-min and 5-min resolution.

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vaughnegut 12 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Windy allows you to select your model. For that reason it's my go to for accuracy.

Different models have different strengths, though. Some are shorter range (72h) or longer range (1-3 weeks). Some are higher resolution for where you live (the size of an area which it assigns a forecast to, so your forecast is more local).

Some governments will have their own weather model for your country that is the most accurate for where you live. What I did for a long time was use Windy and use HDRPS (a Canadian short range model with a higher resolution in Canada so I have more accurate forecasts). Now I just use the government of Canada weather app.

I genuinely wonder what the weather Channel, iPhone/Android official weather apps, etc. use under the hood for global models. My gut says ECMWF (a European model with global coverage) mixed with a little magic.

	▲	chneu 8 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Windy or Ventusky. Both really solid.

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counters 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Sure - you'd simply use a regional, high-resolution model. In some parts of the world, these exist for free (e.g. NOAA runs the HRRR [and soon the RRFS] over CONUS, which is re-run every hour and outputs data on a ~3km grid at up to 15 minute temporal resolution). There exist vendors that will run a custom NWP simulation over a region-of-interest for clients, typically forced by GFS or ECMWF forecasts at the boundaries; some power users of these type of data even have internal teams that will do this. And in this arena are models like StormCast and CorrDiff from NVIDIA - which a few weather companies have white-labeled to replace the NWP models they used to run as mentioned above.

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culi 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

You need a premium subscription but Windy.com has a pretty neat API for devs

https://www.windy.com/

In the bottom right hand corner you can switch between different models and it points out their resolution levels

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trillic 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

HRRR is 15 min res updated hourly. It's not that resolution all the way out only 18 hours I think.

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mlmonkey 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

How does one use weather data in an energy market, if you don't mind my asking?

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jakewins 10 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Yeah exactly like hackitup7 says, it has a huge impact on both sides of the supply and demand equation. It both drives house heating and cooling, which has a massive consumption impact, and it drives solar and wind production.

But knowing "there will be a massive drop in temperature between 1pm->2pm" doesn't help much anymore, you need to know which 15-minute or 5-minute block all those heat pumps will kick on in, to align with markets moving to 15-min and 5-min contracts.

Major forecasts like ECMWF don't have anything like that resolution; they model the planet at 3 hour time scale, with a 1 hour "reanalysis" model called ERA5.. hoping to find good info on what's available at higher resolution.

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hackitup7 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Temperature and weather can have a huge impact on power prices. Small examples:

* 90 degree day => more air conditioning usage => power goes up

* 70 degree sunny day => that's also July 4th (holiday, not a work day when factories or heavy industry are running) => lots of people go outside + it's a holiday => power consumption goes DOWN

* 10 degree difference colder/hotter => impacts resistance of power lines => impacts transmission congestion credits => impacts power prices

It's a fascinating industry. One power trading company that I consulted for had a meteorologist who was also a trader. They literally hired the dude from a news channel if I remember it correctly.

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bitdivision 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Seems like it would be pretty useful to forecast the supply of renewables (wind, solar, maybe some hydro).

	▲	edbaskerville 10 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Indeed. In the not-too-distant future where renewables are the vast majority of generation (sooner in China than in the U.S. at current rates of progress), the weather matters more and more.