Intelligence R&D Projects

The SMART4CAST is a QREN financed project where we aim to develop new techniques for meteorological forecasting and computational intelligence with the purpose of creating new forecasting services for energy systems, smart cities and water distribution systems. These new forecasting techniques are aimed to be processed mainly by the GPU (Graphic Processing Units) due to the high processing volume required. This project is settled on a highly-expandable infrastructure that allows multiple accesses for several parties.

Project Description

SMART4CAST – Intelligent Forecast Systems for Energy and Water Management – is intended to perform research and development in the weather simulation and new computational intelligence techniques. Furthermore, with this project intended to develop a series of forecasting services, linked to energy systems, SmartCITIES and distribution networks of water. The result of the investigation are mathematical models and Hardware & Software platforms for the provision of forecasting services in any geographic place in the world.

As forecasting services is understood as forecasts of several variables (energy production, energy consumption, water consumption, energy market prices, environmental indicators, meteorological variables, etc.) continuously provided for each hour of the next 7 days.

Project Objectives

INVESTIGATION, DEVELOPMENT AND INTEGRATION OF WEATHER SIMULATION SYSTEMS

• Implementation of Mesoscale Weather Forecast Models (WRF) to run 20 ensembles in parallel in 4 hours;
• Integration of local-data assimilation models (LAPS – Load Analysis and Prediction System) to improve short-term forecasting.

NEW INTELLIGENCE COMPUTACIONAL SYSTEMS

• Development and implementation of computational intelligence tools;
• Implementation of a Software for calculation with computational tools (KM – Knowledge Maps) in GPU process.

FORECASTING SERVICES FOR ENERGY SYSTEMS

• Improvement of forecasting models in power systems (wind, hydro and photovoltaic);
• New electricity market-price forecasting service;
• New buildings energy consumption forecasting services;
• New risk of electrical distribution networks failure indicators forecasting services.

SMARTCITIES

• New forecasting services oriented to smartcities
• New forecasting services related to environmental indicators of exterior air quality and comfort indicators of indoor air quality in office buildings.

FORECASTING AND OTIMIZATION SERVICES FOR WATER DISTRIBUTION SECTOR

• New water consumption forecasting services in distribution networks.

Program Financing

This project is part of the Opening Warning 07/SI/2012 for Applications presentation – Sistemas de Incentivos à Investigação e Desenvolvimento Tecnológico (SI I&DT) of QREN (Quadro de Referência Estratégico Nacional), in the Programa Operacional Temático Fatores de Competitividade program scope.

Co-financing

This project is co-financed by FEDER through COMPETE – Programa Operacional Temático Fatores de Competitividade, with a non reimbursable total incentive of 313.873,09€, corresponding to an eligible total of de 495.967,23€.

Execution

The project has a duration of 22 months, starting on the 1st of September of 2013 and ending on the 30th June of 2015.