Improvements to Modeling Climate Data in Demand Forecasting Grant

Improvements to Modeling Climate Data in Demand Forecasting Grant

Status: ACTIVE
Funder: California Energy Commission
Last Updated: March 31, 2026

Summary

Overview

Improvements to Modeling Climate Data in Demand Forecasting To meet California’s energy goals and produce a forecast which accounts for climate change, there is an urgent need to incorporate improved climate data, downscaled projections, and advanced modeling techniques into electricity demand forecasting, system planning tools, and resilience analyses. This solicitation seeks a contractor to provide technical expertise, climate-data processing, and modeling support aligned with ongoing interagency research efforts to continue the work on improving methods for preparing global climate model (GCM) data inputs for use in the CA energy demand forecast. In the 2024 IEPR cycle, CEC staff supported the development of downscaled, bias-corrected projections over California at a 3-kilometer by 3-kilometer spatial resolution and translating the projections into inputs to be used in the forecast to calculate impacts on annual and hourly demand. While the 2023 forecast used hourly output from four Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) models localized to specific weather stations used within the CEC’s forecast models, four additional WRF model runs became available during the 2024 cycle. Staff provided a comparison between the two vintages of model run, and the potential impacts of using the new model results which suggest a significantly warmer climate. These findings result in higher loads if used in the forecast. The 2024 and 2025 IEPR cycles have continued to use the initial WRF run data, but work has continued to understand potential ways to incorporate the new WRF model data. This includes analyzing impacts on peak demand, and average level of heating degree days (HDD) and cooling degree days (CDD) from the initial and new WRF runs. The Energy Commission seeks a contractor to assist in the following activities: Incorporate the improved climate data, downscaled projections, and advanced modeling techniques into electricity and gas demand forecasting and system planningProvide technical expertise on climate-data processing and modeling support aligned with interagency research efforts of improving the use of GCM outputs in demand forecastingAssess characteristic differences between the available sets of GCM outputsAnalyze, process, and compare large datasets such as historical weather station data, climate model outputs, and CEC demand model inputsPrepare climate-impacted projections of weather-related energy supply and demand model inputs including HDD, CDD, temperature, windspeed, cloud cover, solar irradiance, and water availability. There is $400,000 available for the contract resulting from this RFP. This is an hourly rate plus cost reimbursement contract and the award will be made to the responsible Bidder receiving the highest points.

Eligibility

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