RTE Day-ahead Load Forecasting Competition 2017

For many years, the Transmission System Operator RTE has been building electricity demand forecasts, ensuring the ability to match supply and demand at all times and, consequently, guaranteeing power system reliability.

The emergence of new factors related to the energy transition are impacting the electricity demand and making forecasting a more challenging task: self-consumption, growth of new uses (electric vehicles, heat pumps…), regulation of building insulation, new supply offers, possibility for consumers to monitor and control their consumption…

In this context of increasing flexibility and market rule harmonisation at the European level, RTE wants to conduct a review of current forecasting methods and assess the performance of new dynamic and adaptive approaches brought by Data Science.

A first challenge will focus on the deterministic short-term forecast of national and 12 regional electricity demands, a second one will focus on a forecast with associated uncertainty.

RTE will launch its first international public challenge in Data Science mid-May, running till mid-July. The second challenge will take place during winter 2017-2018.

KEY POINTS OF THE CHALLENGE ORGANISATION

Registration

Registration will be open from the opening date to the 24th of May on the platform Datascience.net : https://www.datascience.net/fr/challenge/32/details#

All the information related to the challenge will be available on the platform mid-May. A discussion forum will allow participants to ask any questions they may have.     

Challenge rules

Participants will be given access to meteorological data provided by Météo France for RTE’s operational forecasting activities, and they will be able to retrieve national and regional demand data on RTE’s Eco2mix platform. Participants are allowed to use any other data, provided that source and nature are specified.

The models will be assessed on their ability to forecast demand of ten days (among which bank holidays) between the 25th of May and the 14th of July 2017.

These days will be announced since the challenge’s opening and will be used for the final ranking. Forecasts for day d must be submitted at 9pm on day d-1 at the latest.

In order to practice, participants will have the opportunity to submit forecasts on three consecutive days, from the 18th to the 20th of May.

The same rules regarding time of submission will apply.

Rewards

Following the final ranking, the top three participants will have to submit a one page methodology document before being awarded their prize.

This document will describe the main principles of the method and the data used.

1st prize:      €10,000

2nd prize:     €5,000

3rd prize:      €3,000