Energy market operator used urban data only, undershot heatwave forecast by 3°C Another revelation has emerged that won't reassure large-scale electricity users in Australia: the market operator missed a coming heatwave because it didn't consider State-wide weather forecasts, relying instead on data from just two urban weather stations. That snippet emerged in a report issued by the Australian Energy …
Let's not miss this important point here..
Those two weather stations are located in Kent Town and Adelaide Airport.. These 2 stations are less than 10 kilometers apart.. and Kent Town is only 46m above Adelaide Airport
http://www.bom.gov.au/products/IDS60901/IDS60901.94672.shtml
http://www.bom.gov.au/products/IDS60901/IDS60901.94675.shtml
<rant> In Oz, with 3 x 10^6 of SFA it is business SOP to regard ONLY large urban areas as existing for provision of services. The PHBs seem unaware there is something other than the suburbs nearby if common non-urban experience holds true. Otherwise this excuse for a craven, fawning, colonial inferiority complex, brown nosing ruling class might stop importing irrelevant advisers from countries with small sizes and high population densities, trying to copy ideas that don't work with a few widely scattered urban areas with not much in between. </rant>
Nearly 80% of the state's population live in or around Adelaide, and no-one lives in most of it. Compare that to about 65% for Sydney metro vs NSW. Don't get me wrong, they definitely have questions to answer. At so close to the margin and with plenty of warning, everyone should have been on standby. Can't do much about freak storms knocking down your towers (other than, you know, maintenance), but this should not have happened. They have really stuffed up of SHY sounds sensible.
This is a case study in how big corporations slashing costs cut their data inputs to the bone. They don't invest in getting the data which can optimise their operations and so they lose the people who can use the data as well. All the talk about Big Data is just hot air - particularly in Australia - unless big organisations have the skills and understanding to use it.
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