ISO Minute: Expanding weather stations boosts grid forecasting

ISO Minute is a video series featuring ISO New England employees speaking about their experiences working for the region’s independent system operator and supporting the safe and reliable transition to clean energy.

When it is hot, and increasingly when it’s cold, many New Englanders rely on electricity to keep homes and businesses comfortable. As a result, weather is a major driver of how much electricity the region needs at any given time.

For years, ISO New England based its weather models on hourly data from eight cities—including Boston and Hartford, which are the region’s the largest centers of electricity demand. However, given how much weather can vary across the region, the ISO expanded its weather forecasting to include data from weather stations in 23 cities.

In this ISO Minute video, Michael Fontaine, supervisor of Operations Forecasting, explains why this increase is critical as both the supply of and demand for electricity become more weather-dependent.