Grid operators (TSOs) publish their own day-ahead forecast of wind and solar output. Augur forecasts the same quantities and is measured two honest ways — against the TSO at the same information cutoff, not against a stale number.
Short horizons (the defensible edge): under vintage-controlled evaluation — every feature restricted to data provably available at forecast time — Augur beats Elia's day-ahead solar forecast by ~33–39% at 1 hour ahead and ~15% at 2 hours, fading to parity around 3 hours; Belgian offshore wind stays ahead from +32% at 1 hour to +6% at 16 hours. These numbers match our live self-scores, not just the backtest.
Long horizons (honesty over headline): our own 2026 data-vintage audit showed that earlier long-horizon solar results — including numbers previously on this page — were inflated by a subtle archive-freshness leak. We rebuilt the evaluation, cut the claims, and now quote only vintage-controlled results. At day-ahead range for solar we roughly match the operator's forecast; we don't claim otherwise. Where we lose, the table shows it.
Live, not just backtested: since June 2026 Augur submits hourly probabilistic forecasts (P10/P50/P90, 15-min resolution) to Predico, the collaborative forecasting platform used by Elia, Belgium's grid operator — every gate, around the clock, unattended — and self-scores each submission against the operator's published forecast once actuals settle.
Production models — trained through the latest available data, refreshed every 15 min. (Backtest panels below use the frozen 2026-01-01-cutoff models for honest out-of-sample skill.)
Forecast issued once at the 08:00 UTC gate for 16–38h ahead, scored vs the TSO's own day-ahead forecast for the same slots. Under re-gating: our 2026 data-vintage audit found the weather archive behind these runs can stitch forecast runs issued after the gate, inflating long-horizon skill — treat the solar and RO rows below as upper bounds until the vintage-controlled rebuild replaces them. Wind skill survived the audit at roughly half the size shown.
| market | target | n | TSO DA nMAE | Augur nMAE | RMSE skill | MAE skill |
|---|
Short horizons (≤2h) are confirmed by vintage-controlled evaluation and live self-scoring; horizons beyond ~3h in this legacy table are under the same re-gating caveat as the day-ahead section.
| target | horizon | n test | TSO DA RMSE | model RMSE | skill vs DA | skill vs TSO intraday |
|---|
Intraday re-forecasts every 15 min using fresh actuals. "Skill vs TSO intraday" is the fair fight — vs the TSO's own continuously-updated forecast (the best it had by delivery). We win at short horizons, fade to losses by 4h as the TSO's near-delivery info wins out. RO has no published intraday forecast, so only vs-DA is shown there.
| market | model MAE | persistence MAE | MAE skill | directional | P80 cov |
|---|
Chart: DE-LU, last 7 test days (actual vs Q50, Q10–Q90 band). Same model across all 5 markets — residual-load-driven, quantiles conformal-calibrated. Skill tracks how renewable-driven each market's price is: high for DE/NL/BE, moderate for nuclear FR, lowest for hydro-driven AT. No TSO price forecast exists; baselines are persistence/seasonal. MAE + directional matter more than RMSE — price is near-random in level.
| horizon | model MAE | persistence MAE | MAE skill | premium-direction acc | P80 cov |
|---|
Imbalance price (what BRPs pay to deviate) is extremely volatile. We beat persistence for ≥30 min (it's frozen quarter-to-quarter at 15 min) and the day-ahead anchor ≥1 h. Honest limit: predicting the long/short *direction* adds nothing over the current imbalance state. Intervals conformal-calibrated.
Backtest results against each transmission system operator's own published forecast, identical delivery slots, temporal split at 2026-01-01, public data only. Negative skill means the TSO wins — shown either way. Since June 2026 the same models also submit live hourly P10/P50/P90 forecasts to Predico, the collaborative forecasting platform used by Elia (Belgium's TSO).
| market | Augur | TSO DA | RMSE skill |
|---|---|---|---|
| DE solar | 1338 MW | 1264 MW | -5.8% |
| DE wind onshore | 1799 MW | 1996 MW | +9.9% |
| DE wind offshore | 773 MW | 788 MW | +1.9% |
| RO solar | 108 MW | 302 MW | +64.0% |
| RO wind onshore | 198 MW | 236 MW | +16.1% |
| BE solar | 395 MW | 368 MW | -7.4% |
| BE wind offshore | 225 MW | 269 MW | +16.2% |
| market | Augur | TSO intraday | RMSE skill |
|---|---|---|---|
| DE solar | 271 MW | 756 MW | +64.1% |
| DE wind onshore | 597 MW | 1028 MW | +41.9% |
| DE wind offshore | 149 MW | 505 MW | +70.6% |
| BE solar | 46 MW | 209 MW | +78.1% |
| BE wind offshore | 59 MW | 215 MW | +72.5% |