Suncast features technological updates for solar and wind energy forecasting models

The Chilean company, with over seven years of experience in artificial intelligence for renewable energies, has centred their latest updates on adjusted forecasting models and battery storage recommendations.

Suncast, a Chilean company with seven years of experience in technologies based on artificial intelligence development of renewable energies, made itself present at the Future Energy Summit (FES) Southern Cone mega event, which gathered over 400 Latin American leaders of the energy sector in the city of Santiago, Chile.

Pedro Correa Álvarez, CTO of the company, announced that Suncast currently provides services to more than 5 GW of solar and wind energy installed capacity, and while its evolution has been significant, as renewable energy capacity continues to increase, so will the challenges.

“Improved quality forecasts will be required to guarantee the network’s stability. With good forecasts, we will know how much energy we can produce, while the operation of power plants, we can observe the impact on energy generation caused by different challenges”, he said during the “Perspectivas para la evolución de la Energía Eólica en el Cono Sur”, discussion board.  

“For example, sometimes power must be decreased because of environmental impact, such as sound and shade, which affect wind energy forecasts, and we must consider; as well as malfunctions and maintenance that could normally occur in a power plant to have certainty of the energy that will be generated”, he continued. 

In response to technical and environmental challenges, Suncast has developed a tool which registers events that could affect the availability of projects, which adjusts to forecasting models to show the wind energy farms’ actual operation and that such information is sent correctly to the Coordinador Eléctrico Nacional (CEN). 

“Precise forecasts are retrieved, then adjusted to the unavailability events and sent directly to the CEN using a robust system that submits the information. It is essential because the network’s operator needs the forecasts to know how much wind energy is available the following day to plan the network’s operation”, stated the specialist. 

During 2024, Suncast significantly increased its coverage from 210 MW in 2022 to 2,623 MW installed wind energy capacity, representing almost 50% of Chile's operational wind power capacity.

For 2025, the company plans to further expand their services by developing tools that will allow the historical analysis of the resources of new projects and technologies, in line with Chile’s renewable energy market trends. 

“We perceive several opportunities associated with new lines of business in 2025. Regarding wind energy, there was a requirement to perform a historical analysis of the resource to prospect for future projects”, he noted. 

“When it comes to storage systems, we are already developing battery charge and discharge recommendation technology, which we are hoping to implement in hybrid solar and wind energy farms as they continue to be developed during 2025”, he concluded.