One million customers, zero surprises: how Con Edison forecasts peak demand on New York’s gas network

From data to operational plan: multi-level forecasting for districts, gas regulators and city gates.

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The challenge

Con Edison, one of the leading US utilities, must guarantee service continuity and forecast quality across one of the densest areas in the world (Manhattan, the Bronx, Queens and Westchester), serving over a million customers through its gas distribution network.

Planning investment, operational and regulatory decisions proactively, and keeping pace with New York’s ambitious decarbonisation targets, called for an advanced tool. A tool able to forecast consumption peaks, accurately model the network at different levels of detail, and turn data into something the Energy Management and Gas Engineering teams could use straight away.

How we create value

Optit designed, tested, implemented and delivered the Gas Distribution Forecasting Tool (GDFT) to the client.

The system combines consumption data from over a million customers (using hourly AMI data) with multi-level hydraulic models representing the network across Manhattan, Bronx, part of Queens and Westchester, generating daily and hourly peak forecasts at different levels of granularity: districts, regulators and city gates.

The custom web app built by Optit brings together clustering, forecasting and backcasting, making the results instantly readable through heatmaps, tables and charts, highlighting peaks at critical points in the network and feeding directly into day-to-day decision-making.

Impact

Accurate daily and hourly consumption forecasts for districts, regulators and city gates.
Proactive investment planning and stronger support for operational and regulatory decisions.
A custom web app that makes network peaks instantly visible at critical points.
Closer alignment with the decarbonisation plans of New York City and New York State.