IBM has announced a weather-modeling and power-grid management system with the goal of increasing the effectiveness and efficiency of renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power. "Applying analytics and harnessing big data will allow utilities to tackle the intermittent nature of renewable energy and forecast power …

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Tuesday 13th August 2013 00:20 GMT MondoMan

Why no hoopla in climate circles?

The MetOffice's few-month "predictions" have been so lacking in accuracy that you would think they would be pounding on IBM's door begging to be allowed to buy this technology. After all, it can supposedly accurately predict weather conditions in a small location (that's even harder than doing it for a big region) a month in advance!

My guess is that both the MetOffice and IBM realize this is just sales droid fluff, and since they would only be ripping off the Chinese if their statement turned out not to be true there's no skin off Britain's nose.

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Tuesday 13th August 2013 06:51 GMT John Smith 19

"Supplement," when the target is wind power generation on shore <= 26% of the time

I think on that basis it's the other way around. Wind power "supplements" conventional generation.

Oddly I thought China had quite a lot of rivers. I'd have guessed micro hydro and biogas would have been better at the village level. Geothermal as well?

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Tuesday 13th August 2013 07:23 GMT Katie Saucey

For half the cost....

I'll sell them my world class system (hint, it involves theweathernetwork.com and a backup window). Some IBM marketing department exec. just achieved "top gun" status.

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Tuesday 13th August 2013 14:47 GMT itzman

so now..we will be able to predict with unerring accuracy

..just how pointless expensive and unreliable 'renewable' energy is.

Foot own shoot..

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Tuesday 13th August 2013 16:08 GMT Anonymous Coward

Looks just like any other "Energy Dashboard" (where's the Analytics?)

The graphic marketing piece looks like any other marketing via "energy dashboard".

Seems to me that any decent DDC Building Automation system could harvest and analyze this kind of data from weather sources and sensors and provide the projected savings and some version of anticipatory control to help the wind turbines work more efficiently. Schneider has great analytics and can directly integrate with their and others electrical switchgear for the grid control.

According to the content of the article, IBM just looks like a software solution looking for a guinea pig.

Sometimes it's best to let the company with real experience do the work instead of buying the "big marketing pitch" from an "integrator" (who will only subcontract out work to the experienced company anyway)

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