A working cohort sharpening load forecasting across methods and curves, tools and benchmarking, and the data pipelines underneath, as large loads make the forecast harder and more consequential than ever.
Load forecasting got harder and higher-stakes at the same time. Data centers, electrification, and distributed resources are bending the load curve in ways the old methods were not built for, and the forecast now drives billion-dollar planning and rate decisions.
The series started with one question, asked utility by utility through the fall of 2025: what does load forecasting need right now that no single utility can build alone? The answers were consistent. Shared methods. Tool transparency. The data pipelines and the business case underneath them. And a trusted peer network where it is safe to say “I don’t know.”
Today the cohort is more than a hundred practitioners across nearly forty member utilities, organized into three pods and working through the year, virtually and in person. It runs through the Center for Operational Excellence, supported in part by funding from the U.S. Department of Energy, working alongside the Load Research & Analytics Committee.
One-on-one outreach across the membership: what does forecasting need that no single utility can build alone? The answers became the blueprint.
A virtual kickoff with more than 100 registered and 16 live discussion threads, from data governance and uncertainty to the business case.
The first in-person working session. The cohort organized itself into three pods: methods and curves, tools and benchmarking, data pipelines and the business case.
A second in-person workshop, and on April 24 the AEIC Load Forecasting Practitioner Workbook shipped to the whole cohort.
A virtual workshop drew 41 attendees from 24 utilities: a Workbook walkthrough, a practitioner methods share, and the launch of the large-load survey.
Two workshops built to be taken together: methods and tools in September, large load in November, closing the year virtually in December.
Forecasting methodology, from statistical fundamentals to the curve work behind planning and rates. Building shared curve submission frameworks the whole cohort can use.
The tools utilities actually use, benchmarked across peers. Home of the Tool Landscape Matrix, updated live at every workshop.
The data plumbing under the forecast, and the business case for investing in it before the forecast misses get expensive.
“It is not a rulebook. It is not a final answer. It is a synthesis of what more than a hundred practitioners have been willing to share.” That is how the Practitioner Workbook introduced itself when version zero shipped to the cohort in April 2026, and it is the operating spirit of the whole series: a shared baseline, so the next conversation starts further along than the last one did.
The fall workshops feed the next edition. What the room works through in Denver and Chicago, from feeder-level capacity checks to large-load materialization, goes back into the Workbook so the whole membership keeps the gain.
System-level forecasting and the granular work underneath it: feeder-level approaches, capacity checks, and work-order thresholds. A live Tool Landscape Matrix update, pod roundtables, and the scoping of the Workbook’s next edition.
Materialization and the confidence gate: what counts as real in the interconnection queue. Findings from the cohort’s large-load survey, ramp and load profiles, storage and EV load shaping. The year closes with the 2027 action plan.
The series is supported in part by DOE funding, part of the AEIC and DOE partnership on grid modernization and customer affordability.
NLR administers the cohort’s large-load survey and joins the workshops. AEIC hosts the room, NLR runs the research, and both publish back to the industry.
That is all it took to join this cohort, and it is still all it takes. One utility membership opens the series, and every other committee and program, to your whole organization. The more you know, the less you know. The more you share, the more we all grow.
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