Our University team, composed of Katarzyna Maciejowska, Jakub Nowotarski (leaders), Jakub Tomczyk, and Prof. Rafał Weron (consultants) will stand on the podium of the international GEFCom2014 competition
About 200 participants from all around the world took part in the competition of probabilistic forecasting of electrical energy prices. It was organized for the second time by scientists from the USA, Canada, Australia, and Denmark. Each of the teams applying to the competition via the CrowdAnalytics web platform obtained a file containing historical data, and basing on them made forecasts of energy prices. “The file presented historical prices and demand for electrical energy, probably from a region of USA.” – said Jakub Nowotarski, a graduate and doctoral student of mathematics at the Wrocław University of Technology Faculty of Computer Science and Management – “The competition lasted 15 weeks. At the end of each week, we sent our forecasts of energy prices for the forthcoming 24 hours.”
The team that achieved a result closest to real prices, i.e. made the best forecasts, was the victor. The team from France, composed of researchers and practitioners, turned out to be the winner. Our team, which consisted of three Wrocław University of Technology researchers and Jakub Tomczyk – doctoral student of the University of Sydney, but also our graduate, made it to the top three, too. There are no final results yet but after the assessment of forecasts quality (and before the assessment of final report), our team is ranked second. The official results will be announced in Spring.
“It is important to prove that the tools we used to predict the prices are documented. This will allow the jury to determine who was reading the tea leaves, and who employed a refined methodology.” – says Nowotarski.
Apart from the financial prize, teams from the top three are granted an opportunity to present their papers at the PESGM2015 (IEEE Power & Energy Society General Meeting) in Denver (Colorado, USA), in July, as well as to publish an article in the prestigious International Journal of Forecasting. “I am very happy I will be able to take part in the conference, especially that I was planning to go to the USA.” – says Nowotarski.
Jakub Nowotarski thinks that second place is a great result. “These are unofficial world championships in forecasting energy prices. It confirms that we are good at what we are doing.” – he laughs.
The idea underlying the competition is to build a bridge between the industry and science. Therefore, both researchers and practitioners participate in the event. One of the aims is to standardize forecasting methods. “There are lots of energy prices forecasting tools but it isn’t always obvious which ones are the best because they are compared in different conditions.” – explains Jakub Nowotarski – “Another objective is to improve forecasting tools, which is important not only for the scientific society, but also for the practitioners, that is, for the industry.”
Katarzyna Górowicz-Maćkiewicz
Translation: Dariusz Więcławski |