Open Climate Fix (OCF) has partnered with Google DeepMind (GDM) to integrate its cutting-edge AI weather models into India’s electricity grid operations. This collaboration aims to significantly improve the accuracy of renewable energy forecasts in India, helping grid operators and Independent Power Producers (IPPs) manage volatility, potentially saving millions of dollars annually, and supporting the country’s ambitious clean energy targets. OCF’s wind generation forecast is already used by state operators and IPPs in India, including Adani Green, where it has helped reduce imbalance penalties by an average of 13%.

This builds on an earlier collaboration which tested the integration of Google's WeatherNext models into OCF’s wind generation forecast, Quartz Wind. The results demonstrated up to 8% accuracy improvement in forecast performance for Indian State Operators when using historical wind generation data. OCF is now moving this demonstrated performance into a live operational environment, validating the benefits at scale.

This partnership comes as India rapidly scales its renewable capacity, becoming the third largest generator of solar energy globally in 2023, with an ambitious target of installing 500 GW of renewable capacity by 2030. Predicting power generation rapidly and accurately is more critical than ever with the growth of weather dependent power sources. This increase in forecasting accuracy will enable India's state operators to make optimal decisions regarding energy balancing, ensuring the grid can manage its growing intermittent supply. By improving accuracy further, this project aims to make Indian renewable assets more investable and reliable by reducing large forecasting errors which come with large penalties levied by regulators. For large sites such as Khavda Energy Park, the world’s largest renewable project with on track to produce an estimated 30GW of generation, these penalties can prove extremely costly.

Future plans for the project include experimentation with Google's recently launched WeatherNext 2 forecasts, to even further increase the accuracy.

Through this partnership, GDM and OCF are actively improving the reliability, affordability and efficiency of renewable energy within India.

Dan Travers, Co-founder of Open Climate Fix, said: “Seeing the significant improvements in our test environment validates the power of open-science AI for climate action. This live implementation in India is a huge milestone for us, proving that collaborative, non-profit solutions can drive efficiency and reliability at the heart of one of the world’s most ambitious energy transitions.”

About Open Climate Fix (OCF): Open Climate Fix is a non-profit organisation pioneering open-source AI tools and open data for renewable energy. Our goal is to make clean power more predictable, reliable and affordable - accelerating the shift away from fossil fuels. For more, visit openclimatefix.org.

About Google DeepMind: Google DeepMind is an AI research lab known for tackling grand challenges and advancing the frontier of AI, including its application to climate and weather forecasting.