A local study presented at the 12th CIGRE Southern Africa Regional Conference, held from October 14-16 in Pretoria, has demonstrated how advanced forecasting models can support smarter renewable energy integration into South Africas grid.
Presented by Omaira Jajbhay , electrical engineer at Zutari, the paper applied a seasonal autoregressive integrated moving average SARIMA forecasting model to 20 years of hourly wind data from a site in the Eastern Cape. The study achieved a mean absolute error of 0,44 m/s in predicting 2024 wind speeds, illustrating strong forecasting accuracy under local conditions.
Our study utilised 20 years of local hourly wind data from a site in the Eastern Cape, providing a robust foundation unique to South African conditions, Jajbhay said.