Cloudy British weather is the butt of many jokes - but the United Kingdom's national power grid is making the most of its sunshine.
With the help of Open Climate Fix, a nonprofit product lab, the control room of the National Grid Electricity System Operator (ESO) is testing AI models that provide granular, near-term forecasts of sunny and cloudy conditions over the country's solar panels.
These insights can help ESO, the U.K.'s electric grid operator, address a key challenge in renewable energy: Sudden cloud cover can cause a significant dip in solar power generation, so grid operators ask fossil fuel plants to overproduce energy as backup.
With better forecasts, ESO could cut down on the extra fossil fuel energy held as reserve - improving efficiency while decreasing carbon footprint.
Traditional weather models aren't very good at predicting clouds, but using AI and satellite imagery, we can bring a lot more accuracy to solar forecasting, said Dan Travers, co-founder of Open Climate Fix, a U.K.-based startup. Solar energy is really effective at displacing coal, but grid operators need accurate forecasts to make it possible to integrate large amounts of solar generation - so we see a lot of opportunity in bringing this solution to coal-heavy electric grids worldwide.
Open Climate Fix is a member of NVIDIA Inception, a global program that offers cutting-edge startups expertise, technology and go-to-market support. The team publishes its datasets, dozens of models and open-source code to HuggingFace and GitHub.
Each colored dot on the map represents a solar photovoltaic system. Blue dots represent low solar-energy output, yellow dots signify high output and black dots are systems with no data.
AI to Catch a Cloud and Pin It Down Before the advent of renewable energy, the experts managing the electric grid day-to-day only had to worry about the variability of demand across the network - making sure there was enough power generated to keep up with air conditioners during a heat wave, or electric stoves and appliances on weekday evenings.
By adding renewables such as wind and solar energy to the mix, the energy grid must also account for weather-related variation in the level of supply. Satellite images provide the most up-to-date view to determine when clouds are coming between photovoltaic panels and the sun.
Open Climate Fix's AI models are trained on terabytes of satellite data captured at five-minute intervals over Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. Additional data sources include years' worth of hourly weather predictions at ten-kilometer resolution, topographic maps, information about the time of day and the sun's position in the sky, and live readings from around solar panels across the U.K.
The team is using some of the most recent deep learning models for weather modeling including MetNet, GraphCast and Deep Generative Model of Radar. They've shown that their transformer-based AI models are 3x better at predicting solar energy generation than the forecasts generated by ESO's traditional methods. The increased precision can help ESO reach its goal of being able to operate a zero-carbon electric grid by 2025.
The physics-based forecasting models are powerful for predicting weather on the scale of days and weeks, but take hours to produce - making them ill-suited for predictions at the hour or minute level, said Travers. But with satellite images captured at intervals of a few minutes, we can get closer to a live view of cloud cover.
AI's Working on Sunshine Cloud cover is of particular concern in the U.K., where cities including London, Birmingham and Glasgow receive an average of 1,400 or fewer hours of sunshine each year - less than half that of Los Angeles. But even in desert climates where cloudy days are rare, Open Climate Fix's AI models could be repurposed to detect when solar panels would be covered by dust from a sandstorm.
In addition to forecasting for the entire U.K., the nonprofit is also developing models that can forecast how much energy individual solar panels will capture. This data could help large solar farm operators understand and maximize their energy output. Smart home companies, too, could use the information to optimize energy use from solar panels on customers' roofs - giving homeowners insights about when to run power-hungry devices or schedule electric vehicle charging.
Open Climate Fix uses a cluster of NVIDIA RTX A6000 GPUs granted through an NVIDIA Hardware Grant to power its work. When training multiple models at the same time, the team shifts its overflow workload to NVIDIA A100 Tensor Core GPUs available through cloud service providers.
The hardware grants have helped us develop and iterate on our models more easily, said Jacob Bieker, a machine learning researcher at Open Climate Fix. When our team is first debugging and training a model, it's two or three times faster to do so locally.
To learn more about AI accelerating decarbonization, boosting grid resiliency and driving energy efficiency, register free for NVIDIA GTC, which takes place online, March 20-23.
Read about NVIDIA's work in power and utilities and apply to join NVIDIA Inception.
Main image of National Grid ESO Electricity National Control Center, courtesy of ESO Media Center
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
04/07/2026
April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...
01/06/2026
January 6 2026, 05:30 (PST) Dolby Sets the New Standard for Premium Entertainment at CES 2026
Throughout the week, Dolby brings to life the latest innovatio...
13/05/2026
New Adobe Premiere Color Grading Mode Accelerated on NVIDIA GPUs
Joel Pennington May 13, 2026
0 Comments
New NVIDIA RTX-accelerated features streamlin...
13/05/2026
Grass Valley announced that dB Broadcast has delivered new IP-based outside broadcast (OB) trucks for Cloudbass, featuring Grass Valley LDX 100 Series cameras a...
13/05/2026
Ikegami will exhibit the latest additions to its wide range of broadcast production cameras, control units, viewfinders and monitors on stand 5D3-1 at Broadcast...
13/05/2026
FISE, working with the founding members of the XR Sports Alliance (XRSA), Accedo, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. and HBS, have collaborated to develop an immersive...
13/05/2026
Canon Unveils New EOS R6 V Full-Frame EOS Camera and RF20-50mm F4 L IS USM PZ Bu...
13/05/2026
Boston Conservatory at Berklee Honors Beth Morrison and Moses Pendleton at Comme...
13/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
13/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
13/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
13/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
13/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
13/05/2026
Creative software developer Foundry today announced the latest developments on Nuke Stage. A purpose-built application for end-to-end virtual production and in-...
13/05/2026
A definitive portrait of one of Ireland's most influential musicians
New TV documentary airs Monday 18 May on RT One and RT Player at 9.35pm
Watch the...
13/05/2026
Agentic AI is changing the way users get work done. Following the success of OpenClaw, the community is embracing new open source agentic frameworks. The latest...
13/05/2026
Reinforcement-learning agents - AI systems that learn by trial and error - can c...
12/05/2026
Beyond the Hype: A Strategic Post-Hoc Analysis of NAB 2026 If NAB Show 2026 had an underlying theme, it was a quiet, industry-wide pivot from the high-energy sp...
12/05/2026
Guntermann and Drunck (G&D), a Panoptec Technologies Group company, and CT Square, led by Chandresh Shah, have announced a joint venture to distribute G&D and V...
12/05/2026
With 30 days until the start of the FIFA World Cup 2026, Telemundo, the exclusive Spanish-language home of the tournament in the United States, has announced th...
12/05/2026
The NHL has announced the return of Stanley Pup for its third consecutive year, a 90-minute special featuring adoptable rescue dogs competing on a miniature rin...
12/05/2026
NBCUniversal presented its 2026 Upfront to advertisers at Radio City Music Hall, detailing upcoming programming across NBC, Peacock, Bravo, and Versant properti...
12/05/2026
FOX Sports has announced funding for the Fandom and Social Connection Initiative at Harvard Kennedy School's Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics, and Publ...
12/05/2026
TNDV and Live Media, both divisions of Live Media Group, supported live broadcast coverage around NCAA Final Four weekend in Indianapolis, including the March M...
12/05/2026
The European Football Alliance (EFA) has announced a content distribution agreement with Fubo Sports Network, the free ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) channel ...
12/05/2026
For the first time, Spanish-speaking fans in the U.S. will have two separate tel...
12/05/2026
CP Communications led a comprehensive spectrum management initiative on behalf of Churchill Downs during Kentucky Derby week, coordinating RF assets across the ...
12/05/2026
LiveU has announced a strategic partnership with DRONERESPONDERS, a 501(c)3 non-...
12/05/2026
Open Broadcast Systems has announced that BMC TV, a specialist in IP transport of broadcast content, has selected the Open Broadcast Systems 5G Flyaway solution...
12/05/2026
NEP Europe, part of NEP Group, has announced it will deliver broadcast solutions...
12/05/2026
Grass Valley has announced continued collaboration with Ravensbourne University ...
12/05/2026
Stats Perform has announced the launch of Opta Pulse, an AI-assisted video creation and distribution platform for leagues, rights holders, and broadcasters. The...
12/05/2026
FOX Sports has announced a collaboration with Sesame Workshop to integrate Sesame Street characters into FOX Sports' FIFA World Cup 2026 programming. Conten...
12/05/2026
To date, NHL Productions has produced 19 broadcasts with commentary in American Sign Language
NHL in ASL (American Sign Language) may be just one show, but the...
12/05/2026
Google's Brian Albert: creators, athletes, highlights, nostalgia, second-scr...
12/05/2026
A still from Past Lives by Celine Song, an official selection of the Premieres program at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. (Courtesy of Sundance Institute | p...
12/05/2026
Spotify is where fans and artists come together, turning discovery into somethin...
12/05/2026
Features patented Marco-MMC clocking technology
Black Lion Audio's latest release combines the company's expertise in clocking with their renowned p...
12/05/2026
New Track Panel, sequencer upgrades & more
Following their recent public beta release, Reason Studios have announced the full release of Reason 14. With the...
12/05/2026
One month to go! SBS reveals expansive FIFA World Cup 2026 lineup beyond the pi...
12/05/2026
Rohde & Schwarz presents its advanced solutions for power electronics testing at...
12/05/2026
aconnic AG (ISIN: DE000A0LBKW6), Munich, has developed a modified fund raising p...
12/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/05/2026
Tyrell Corporation, specialists in high-end live sports and entertainment broadcasts, was tasked with delivering compelling broadcast coverage of premier equest...
12/05/2026
Registration is now open for IBC2026 as the global media, entertainment and technology community prepares to converge on the RAI Amsterdam from 11 14 September ...
12/05/2026
Ross Video, a global leader in live video production technology, will present its latest innovations and integrated production workflows at BroadcastAsia 2026, ...
12/05/2026
500 selected leaders from around the world across start-ups, corporates, and venture capital. Over 50bn in assets under management among attending investors, a...
Cloudy British weather is the butt of many jokes - but the United Kingdom's national power grid is making the most of its sunshine.
