Use Case

Near all nuclear power plants are built next to the sea because of stable supply of water, they are rarely next to streams, rivers because once a nuclear chain reaction is started for a rod, it will take a very long time for it to stop, hence the importance/risk/danger it poses if there are no steady water supply.

Hydro electric power plant is also in the same boat but without the melt down risk, but without water hydro power plant will also ground to a halt.

Due to the fact that these power generation types are heavily dependent on water, there are many factors, forecasting and planning is vital for such locations in order to ensure safety, stability for the grid, and reduce costs.

Nuclear power plants are normally built along the coast line to ensure steady supply of water, but as global average temperature starts to rise, thus sea levels also start to rise, and the rise of global temperature also drives a hotter summer and hotter sea water temperature hence more frequent hurricanes and typhoons. Combining a rising sea levels, storm surges and hurricanes a longer term forecasting for power plants along the coast line would be important to ensure the safety and stability of power plants that are next to coast lines.

“Climate change: Drought highlights dangers for electricity supplies 
Electricity from hydropower - which uses water to generate power - has dropped by 20% overall. And nuclear facilities, which are cooled using river water, have been restricted.
Italy gets around 1/5 of its power from hydro, but that's fallen by around 40% in the past 12 months
It's a similar story in Spain, where the amount of electricity generated is down 44%, according to data from energy researchers Rystad Energy. "Hydropower can be quite volatile, but 40% is absolutely extreme," says Fabian Rønningen, a power analyst with Rystad.”https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-62524551

Articles above showed that Spain and Italy are both quite heavily dependent on Hydro power, and nuclear facilities that are along rivers. Thus it shows the importance on the longer term forecast to estimate if the trend continues, would their supply be affected and gives a long warning ahead of time to accommodate planning and shifting their power to alternative resources to ensure a stable supply and reduces costs for their users.

Below is a link showing how the Australian government has started doing such forecast for renewable energy generation, as this will be a topic that governments and many large utilities will focus on in the coming future.

“An innovative live demonstration of gridded, automatic renewable generation forecasts in South Australia (SA) is set to lead the way for a national roll-out of next generation energy forecasting.”https://arena.gov.au/news/optimising-renewable-energy-output-through-weather-forecasting/

“Record-setting heat and drought gripping the western United States are exposing a potentially severe risk to the nation’s long-term power supply, and experts warn that grid operators lack sufficient tools to plan and carry out a defense. A future of worsening water scarcity in heat-blistered parts of the United States could imperil fossil fuel power plants and nuclear reactors that depend on enormous quantities of fresh water in their operations, according to a report by a group of analysts from the Energy Department’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory and other researchers.”https://www.eenews.net/articles/severe-heat-drought-pack-dual-threat-to-power-plants/

That is what we tailor our solutions for, pre-planning forecast, understanding customer’s situations and give customed forecasting and analytics to reduce risk, cost and maximize stability and efficiency.

For some power stations, factories that are placed inland that are connected by rivers, in many of such cases, their cooling rely on water supply by nearby rivers, critical materials are transported on barges through these water network, and when the temperature continue to break record high, the evaporation rate would increase, hence these waterways transport efficiency will continue to reduce, and understanding when issues would start appearing ahead of time through tailored forecasting is important for such operations.

“Tomorrow, the Rhine river is expected to fall below the critical level of 40 centimeters (15.75 inches) at Kaub, to the west of Frankfurt. That will make it effectively impassable to most barges, and those that can still traverse the chokepoint won’t be able to carry much—indeed, some vessels have already been forced to sail three-quarters empty in recent days (fully laden vessels require a depth of 1.5 meters at Kaub). This makes journeys expensive to the point of being uneconomical.”https://fortune.com/2022/08/11/europe-drought-rivers-dry-energy-crisis/