P-ZERØ
Know what your wind and solar sites will deliver, before they deliver it.
P-ZERØ combines high-resolution weather forecasts with each plant’s own history to predict generation, with an honest range around every number.
Animated 3D illustration of a simulated day at a hybrid site: a 50 MW wind farm on a ridge and a75 MW solar plant whose panels turn to follow the sun. Wind is drawn as streaks flowing across the site over a 90 m forecast grid. Around midday a band of cloud passes over the solar plant and its output dips; in the afternoon a stronger wind arrives from the east and the wind farm's output climbs. Beside the scene, the morning's forecast for both plants is shown as a P50 line with shaded percentiles from P10 to P90, and the actual output is drawn in as the day plays. The forecast flagged both events about an hour ahead. The site also has battery storage, which follows the forecast: it charges when the plants make more than forecast and supplies power when they make less, so what reaches the grid stays close to plan.
| Time | Wind P10 | Wind P50 | Wind P90 | Wind actual | Solar P10 | Solar P50 | Solar P90 | Solar actual |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 07:00 | 11 | 14 | 17 | 15 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 29 |
| 08:00 | 11 | 14 | 17 | 15 | 47 | 48 | 50 | 48 |
| 09:00 | 11 | 13 | 16 | 14 | 58 | 60 | 62 | 60 |
| 10:00 | 9 | 12 | 14 | 12 | 65 | 67 | 70 | 65 |
| 11:00 | 7 | 9 | 11 | 9 | 69 | 71 | 74 | 71 |
| 12:00 | 5 | 6 | 8 | 7 | 28 | 43 | 54 | 35 |
| 13:00 | 5 | 7 | 8 | 7 | 67 | 73 | 75 | 75 |
| 14:00 | 7 | 9 | 13 | 9 | 59 | 69 | 72 | 71 |
| 15:00 | 19 | 35 | 48 | 43 | 49 | 63 | 67 | 56 |
| 16:00 | 29 | 40 | 50 | 47 | 59 | 61 | 63 | 59 |
| 17:00 | 29 | 40 | 50 | 47 | 48 | 50 | 52 | 51 |
| 18:00 | 29 | 40 | 50 | 46 | 31 | 33 | 34 | 33 |
Illustrative: a synthetic site and a simulated day, played in under a minute.
Why forecasting matters
Forecasting used to be a box to tick for the PPA. Now every percentage point of error comes straight off the bottom line.
- Forecast, submitted the day before
- ±10% of contracted capacity
- Actual output
- 4 penalty hours
- Forecast penalties
- Under REIPPPP Bid Windows 5 to 7, each facility submits an hourly forecast for the next day by 10:00. In any hour where output misses it by more than 10% of contracted capacity, a penalty comes off that hour’s energy payment, rising with the size of the miss.
- Trading and balancing
- As the South African Wholesale Energy Market (SAWEM) arrives, generators become balancing responsible parties. Forecast too high and you buy replacement energy, often at a higher price; too low and the surplus sells for less.
- Batteries and commitments
- On hybrid sites the forecast decides when to charge and discharge, and what ancillary services you can safely commit to.
- Running the plant
- Grid operators balance supply on what you tell them, and maintenance, staffing and spares planning all start from expected output.
Why P-ZERØ
Built for South African wind, solar and hybrid sites, so forecasting stops being a cost and starts protecting revenue.
- A model for your plant
- Each facility gets its own machine learning model, trained on its generation and met-mast data, retrained every quarter. New sites start from simulated power curves and move to the trained model once real data builds up.
- It knows when the plant can’t deliver
- The availability calendar and live status tags fold maintenance and outages into the forecast, and an alarm fires before submission if something is offline that the forecast doesn’t know about.
- Fine detail, honest range
- Forecasts as fine as 5-minute steps, refreshed as often as every 10 minutes, up to 16 days ahead, with any percentile from P10 to P90.
- Fits how you work
- Delivered by REST API, MQTT, Modbus, OPC UA, scheduled files or the P-ZERØ dashboard, with automated PPA submissions. Typically live in 3 to 4 weeks.
- Built here, proven elsewhere too
- Developed in South Africa by a team that works with the REIPPPP rules and local grid constraints, and running on wind and solar facilities in South Africa, Europe and North America since 2023.
Forecast horizons
Intraday Rolling updates, as often as every 10 minutes
Day-ahead Issued by 10:00 for all of tomorrow
Up to 16 days For maintenance planning and contracts
- Intraday
- Rolling updates through the day for dispatch and balancing.
- Day-ahead
- Hourly or finer forecasts for scheduling and market bids.
- Up to 16 days
- A longer view for maintenance planning and contract management.
What goes in
- High-resolution weather
- Downscaled forecasts at 90 m and 5 minute resolution through our partnership with Meteomatics.
- Your plant’s history
- SCADA and metering data train a model for each site, so it learns how your turbines and panels actually behave.
- Availability and curtailment
- Planned outages and curtailment are folded in, so the forecast reflects what the plant can export.
What comes out
Probabilistic forecasts for every site: the P50 and any percentile from P10 to P90 (P20, P30 and so on), delivered by API, scheduled file or dashboard. The spread tells your traders and grid operators how much to trust each hour, not just what to expect.
The same data drives asset management: compare expected against actual output to spot underperforming turbines and inverters early.
In
- High-resolution weather90 m, 5 minutes, via Meteomatics
- Your plant’s historySCADA and metering data
- Availability and curtailmentPlanned outages and limits
Model
A model for each site
Trained on how your turbines and panels actually behave
Out
Any percentile from P10 to P90, in steps as fine as 5 minutes
Delivered by
- API
- Scheduled file
- Dashboard
Used for
- Bids and scheduling
- Balancing
- Battery dispatch
- Maintenance and asset management
Weather data from Meteomatics
Since 2024, FALX has partnered with Meteomatics, whose weather API provides 90 m spatial and 5 minute temporal resolution across Africa.
Read the announcement