This Technical Report, which is informative in its nature, describes common practices and state of the art for renewable energy power forecasting technology, including general data demands, renewable energy power forecasting methods and forecasting error evaluation. For the purposes of this document, renewable energy refers to variable renewable energy, which mainly comprises wind power and photovoltaic (PV) power – these are the focus of the document. Other variable renewable energies, like concentrating solar power, wave power and tidal power, etc., are not presented in this document, since their capacity is small, while hydro power forecasting is a significantly different field, and so not covered here.

The objects of renewable energy power forecasting can be wind turbines, or a wind farm, or a region with lots of wind farms (respectively PV systems, PV power stations and regions with high PV penetration). This document focuses on providing technical guidance concerning forecasting technologies of multiple spatial and temporal scales, probabilistic forecasting, and ramp event forecasting for wind power and PV power.

This document outlines the basic aspects of renewable energy power forecasting technology. This is the first IEC document related to renewable energy power forecasting. The contents of this document will find an application in the following potential areas: