How AI-powered weather forecast is making Britain’s energy grid more efficient

Knowing how much power will be flowing into the grid on any given day is becoming increasingly crucial as the proportion of intermittent renewable power serving the grid goes up. And when we talk about intermittent power, we’re talking about the fact that renewable power can’t be stored en masse and must be used immediately.

With this in mind, the National Grid of the UK teamed up with the Alan Turing Institute to use artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to help predict how much energy the United Kingdom will reap from turbines and solar panels when the wind is blowing or the sun is shining. Thus far, the new AI prediction models have improved solar forecasting by one-third, which immediately reduces the need for other, dirtier forms of energy production.