Last summer, after the United Kingdom experienced a power outage affecting millions of people, many wondered how to prevent these outages from happening again. Kevin Forbes, associate professor of economics, has researched methods for a number of years that would help prevent outages. Forbes and Catholic University were issued a patent on a methodology titled, "System and methods for improving the accuracy of solar energy and wind energy forecasts for an electric utility grid.”
Power outages like the one in the U.K. are often due to the weather, wind and solar energy sources, and/or the maintenance of the grid’s frequency. In 2009, with a grant from the National Science Foundation, Forbes dedicated research to power grid issues and econometric methods needed to analyze those issues.
The grant led him to teach the economics of energy and environment class through the Undergraduate Honors Program, in which his students helped stimulate his thinking on the viability of wind and solar energy. “The class gave me the opportunity to apply those insights into finding solutions to the challenges associated with the integration of solar and wind energy into the power grid,” said Forbes.
He specifically analyzes wind and solar energy to forecast inaccuracies that can have adverse implications for the resilience of the power grid. “It is well established by the academic community that the errors from an optimal forecast should have the property of ‘white noise,’” he says. “In short, forecast errors should be purely random. If the errors are not purely random, then forecast accuracy could be improved by removing the nonrandom driver of the error.”
“The patent has established that the forecast errors for both solar and wind energy are correlated with expected meteorological conditions as well as other factors,” says Forbes. “The method then proceeds to generate revised forecasts.”
Currently, Forbes is researching climate change issues and working with what is known as the “Duck Curve,” a graph showing the difference in electricity demand and the amount of available solar energy throughout the day.
This research will ultimately smooth the transition to a more sustainable economy in which the power grid will become more resilient.
Forbes indicates he could not have earned this patent without the support of the Economics Department, and especially Ernest Zampelli, emeritus professor of economics. He also credits Ralph Albano, associate provost of research, for his “enthusiasm and support of the project” and the late Pedro Manoel Buarque de Macedo, emeritus professor of physics, and director emeritus of Vitreous State Laboratory (VSL), who encouraged him to file for a patent.