{
  "id": 5209,
  "title": "At what time is the forecast to be made?",
  "url": "/competitions/ams-2014-solar-energy-prediction-contest/discussion/5209",
  "author_name": "",
  "post_date": "2013-07-26T21:04:09.243Z",
  "votes": null,
  "comment_count": 1,
  "views": 1119,
  "content": "<p>Is there a specified latest time (e.g., 23:59 on the prior day) that the prediction may be made? And, if the prediction can be made at the end of the&nbsp;prior day (or, for that matter, the beginning of the current day), then presumably the&nbsp;prior day's energy&nbsp;would be available as a model input. If this is the case, then daily values for the test set should be provided.</p>\n<p>Thanks,</p>\n<p>Jack</p>",
  "messages": [
    {
      "id": "27703",
      "postDate": "07/26/2013 21:04:09",
      "content": "<p>Is there a specified latest time (e.g., 23:59 on the prior day) that the prediction may be made? And, if the prediction can be made at the end of the&nbsp;prior day (or, for that matter, the beginning of the current day), then presumably the&nbsp;prior day's energy&nbsp;would be available as a model input. If this is the case, then daily values for the test set should be provided.</p>\n<p>Thanks,</p>\n<p>Jack</p>",
      "rawMarkdown": "",
      "votes": null
    },
    {
      "id": "27788",
      "postDate": "07/29/2013 21:35:36",
      "content": "<p>If the solar energy predictions were being run in real time, then they would be run at about 03 UTC after the 00 UTC GEFS finished running. There is no guarantee that the energy information would be available since you may be doing the forecast from an outside firm that does not have a direct link into the power company's live stream. Realtime forecasts would also most likely be done for solar energy by hour up to 72 hours out, so having the previous day's solar energy would not provide any significant help at that lead time. The test set is arranged in chronological order with the dates provided, so giving the previous day's solar energy would mean giving everyone the answers. &nbsp;As the contest is already underway, and the point of the contest is to make the best forecast given the data provided, I am not going to change the current data format, add any more data, or restructure the test set unless a serious issue with the contest data is discovered. I would suggest focusing on finding creative ways to optimize performance with the available data.&nbsp;</p>",
      "rawMarkdown": "",
      "votes": null
    }
  ],
  "comments": [
    {
      "id": 27788,
      "author_name": "djgagne",
      "author_url": "",
      "post_date": "07/29/2013 21:35:36",
      "content": "<p>If the solar energy predictions were being run in real time, then they would be run at about 03 UTC after the 00 UTC GEFS finished running. There is no guarantee that the energy information would be available since you may be doing the forecast from an outside firm that does not have a direct link into the power company's live stream. Realtime forecasts would also most likely be done for solar energy by hour up to 72 hours out, so having the previous day's solar energy would not provide any significant help at that lead time. The test set is arranged in chronological order with the dates provided, so giving the previous day's solar energy would mean giving everyone the answers. &nbsp;As the contest is already underway, and the point of the contest is to make the best forecast given the data provided, I am not going to change the current data format, add any more data, or restructure the test set unless a serious issue with the contest data is discovered. I would suggest focusing on finding creative ways to optimize performance with the available data.&nbsp;</p>",
      "votes": null,
      "replies": []
    }
  ],
  "raw_markdown_by_id": {
    "27703": "",
    "27788": ""
  },
  "source": "meta"
}