… so the “Best Demand Forecasters” were, for Summer 2013-14

As we have done a number of years in the past, we offered some solace to those stuck in the office for the Christmas – New Year period by ensuring that they were the only ones who could enter our “Best Demand Forecaster” in the NEM competition for 2013-14.

A little belatedly after summer closed, we posted this summary of highlights – with the key number being the peak NEM-wide demand of 33,223MW (on Thursday 16th January 2014 at 16:30 NEM time).

All that’s left to do, then, is to declare the winner.

The main prize – the BBQ

Unlike some other years, we only allowed one entry per person to be considered for the main prize pool – despite this, we had a number of entries that were pretty close to the mark.

Following from prior winning performances from others within the organisation, the winner this year is another AEMO staff member – Magnus Hindsberger (with an entry that was only 86MW off the mark – a pretty good effort, I’m sure you’d agree).

So we’re delighted to be able to deliver this as a prize (a real one, that is, not just the image):

Congratulations, Magnus – we’ll be in touch shortly to arrange for delivery of your BBQ (and we’ll expect that invite to come around for the test drive!)

The consolation prizes – the bottles of wine

This year we offered to provide a nice bottle of wine as a consolation prize to those closest to the post from each region.  Some regions were heavily contested, whilst the smaller regions were lighter on for competitors – so remember to get your entries in next summer to have a chance to win!

QLD	We’ll pass over Magnus this year (he should be pretty happy with the BBQ) and award the consolation prize to Elijah Pack, who’s also from AEMO and was second closest (very close to Magnus’ bid). I’d hope Magnus invites Elijah over to break open the bottle when you fire up the BBQ the first time.
NSW	In NSW the entries were not as close to the mark, with Tom Geiser scoring the prize with an entry a little more than 500MW away  – proof enough that demand forecasting is a very difficult proposition for people even within the industry, when there’s a significant personal prize at stake.
VIC	With an almost identical entry in VIC (i.e. also 500MW away), we see the prize goes to Chris Darmanin at GFI.
TAS	Almost 1,000MW off the mark in a thinly contested region, we see that Tim Astley at the Department of Energy was closest to the mark. Something to note, Tasmanians for next summer!
SA	This year we again welcome back Reinhard Struve (our regular  competition junkie) as the regional winner for South Australia – though even Reinhard’s multiple (though bearish) entries were still more than 700MW off the mark, at best. Another region where (based on this year’s results) entrants next summer are really in with a shot!