Britain’s electricity and gas company, National Grid Plc., announced Tuesday that it developed the world’s first regional carbon intensity forecast.
The carbon intensity Application Programming Interface (API) will be able to forecast the carbon intensity of generated electricity 96 hours ahead for each region in Great Britain. This is achieved by using state-of-the-art machine learning and power system modeling, according to a statement on carbonintensity.org.uk website.
“Working with @WWF & @EnvDefenseFund we have regionalized our carbon intensity forecast. How green is your region?' the company said on its official Twitter page, adding their carbon intensity website had evolved for customers to now see where their energy is coming from.
The goal of the OpenAPI service is to allow developers to produce applications that will enable consumers and/or smart phone users to optimize their behavior to minimize carbon dioxide emissions at a local level, the National Grid said.
As an example, the World Wildlife Fund, one of the project partners, has implemented the API into a re-usable widget that can help people plan their energy use, switching devices on when energy is green -- meaning low carbon emissions -- and off when it is not, it added.
The carbon intensity of electricity is a measure of how much carbon dioxide emissions are produced per kilowatt-hour of electricity consumed, and varies by hour, day and season due to changes in electricity demand, low carbon generation (wind, solar, hydro, nuclear, biomass) and conventional generation, according to the website.
The tool was developed in partnership with Environmental Defense Fund Europe, University of Oxford Department of Computer Science and the WWF.
By Hale Turkes
Anadolu Agency
energy@aa.com.tr