Has Southwest Power Pool's demand forecast drifted?
SWPP · updated Jul 6, 22:08 UTC
No regime change detected
Southwest Power Pool — no forecast-error regime change detected
The day-ahead forecast's error has stayed within its calibrated band. Not a certificate that nothing happened.
quiet streak 5 monthsbudget ≈1 false page per BA-yearwatching since Jan 2021
4.82%
mean abs. forecast error
of demand (MAPE)
32,613 MW
mean demand
998 MW
typical error
median |error|
7,663 MW
worst-hour error
99th pctile |error|
The evidence, last two weeks
Because the baseline is the operator’s own forecast, seasonality is subtracted for free — what’s left is the miss. The detector pages only when that miss enters a new regime and clears the page line.
Real EIA-930 data for Southwest Power Pool — the last 336 hourly points. The forecast is the grid operator’s own day-ahead demand forecast (not ours); the error is actual − forecast, peaking at +11,238 MW in this window. The evidence statistic stayed under the page line: no regime change detected. That is not proof nothing happened. Back-in-band is a display heuristic, not a certificate of absence.
Forecast-error regime changes22 in the monitored history
Each is a dated page inside the stated budget. Labels attach only where a window overlaps a documented grid-stress event — never invented. We detect that the forecast’s error changed regime, not that the grid failed or why.
EndedJan 14, 2024 → Jan 16, 2024January 2024 Arctic outbreak
peak evidence
10.08
forecast miss at onset
+5,361 MW
load at onset
95th pctile of this grid
back in-band
Jan 16, 2024
EndedJan 13, 2024 → Jan 16, 2024January 2024 Arctic outbreak
peak evidence
15.19
forecast miss at onset
+2,693 MW
load at onset
88th pctile of this grid
back in-band
Jan 16, 2024
EndedJan 7, 2024 → Jan 9, 2024
peak evidence
10.36
forecast miss at onset
+1,431 MW
load at onset
70th pctile of this grid
back in-band
Jan 9, 2024
EndedAug 30, 2022 → Aug 31, 2022
peak evidence
9.19
forecast miss at onset
−4,060 MW
load at onset
73th pctile of this grid
back in-band
Aug 31, 2022
EndedAug 16, 2022 → Aug 18, 2022
peak evidence
9.53
forecast miss at onset
−4,113 MW
load at onset
95th pctile of this grid
back in-band
Aug 18, 2022
EndedJul 6, 2022 → Jul 8, 2022
peak evidence
10.81
forecast miss at onset
−2,828 MW
load at onset
97th pctile of this grid
back in-band
Jul 8, 2022
EndedFeb 8, 2022 → Feb 9, 2022
peak evidence
9.15
forecast miss at onset
−2,892 MW
load at onset
54th pctile of this grid
back in-band
Feb 9, 2022
EndedJan 11, 2022 → Jan 13, 2022
peak evidence
9.82
forecast miss at onset
−2,546 MW
load at onset
29th pctile of this grid
back in-band
Jan 13, 2022
EndedDec 26, 2021 → Dec 27, 2021
peak evidence
9.15
forecast miss at onset
−3,170 MW
load at onset
5th pctile of this grid
back in-band
Dec 27, 2021
EndedAug 25, 2021 → Aug 26, 2021
peak evidence
9.34
forecast miss at onset
−20,881 MW
load at onset
37th pctile of this grid
back in-band
Aug 26, 2021
EndedJul 5, 2021 → Jul 6, 2021
peak evidence
9.50
forecast miss at onset
−4,272 MW
load at onset
91th pctile of this grid
back in-band
Jul 6, 2021
EndedFeb 17, 2021 → Feb 19, 2021Winter Storm Uri
peak evidence
11.02
forecast miss at onset
−4,494 MW
load at onset
87th pctile of this grid
back in-band
Feb 19, 2021
EndedJan 19, 2021 → Jan 20, 2021
peak evidence
10.52
forecast miss at onset
−2,754 MW
load at onset
14th pctile of this grid
back in-band
Jan 20, 2021
How this verdict is formed
The hourly error runs through a conformal band that learns Southwest Power Pool’s own normal forecast-error rate, into a Shiryaev–Roberts e-detector on a bounded rolling window. An alarm fires only when accumulated evidence crosses the page line — and because the statistic is anytime-valid, checking as often as you like never inflates the false-alarm rate. Full recipe, and exactly what we do not claim, on the methodology page.
Embed this badge
A live status pill for Southwest Power Pool, refreshed every publish. Drop it in a README, status page, or dashboard — it always shows the current verdict and links back here. It reads no regime change while the forecast holds, and flips to forecast drift detected when the e-detector pages.
live preview
Markdown
[](https://validanytime.com/observatory/SWPP)
HTML
<a href="https://validanytime.com/observatory/SWPP"><img src="https://validanytime.com/observatory/badge/SWPP" alt="Southwest Power Pool demand-forecast monitor · ValidAnytime"></a>
live preview