That was Laura Plante’s (Entergy) call to introduce the 2024 Energy Forecasting Group (EFG) Meeting, also known as Itron’s Annual Energy Forecasting Meeting. Originally scheduled for 2020, we finally made it to New Orleans this year from March 12-15. Over four days, 71 attendees representing 45 companies participated in the two pre-conference workshops and a two-and-a-half day general meeting. For those who did not attend or are new to New Orleans, “Laissez les bon temps rouler!” means “Let the good times roll!”

The meeting consisted of 15 technical sessions and three roundtables covering topics including the short-term and long-term economic outlook, long-term energy efficiency trends, electric vehicle market, electrification impacts, industrial customer forecasting, time-of-use rate impacts, distribution system forecasting, DSM forecasting issues and neural networks. The round table discussions centered on “hot” forecasting issues, managing the industrial forecast and distribution system forecasting.

While it’s impossible to encapsulate the two-and-a-half days into a short blog post, I can confidently assert the top three issues that dominated the discussion, which include: 

1. Electric vehicles growth and load shape impacts
2. Accurately capturing large (and lumpy) industrial growth from data centers and manufacturing additions 
3. Electrification in the form of heat pump adoptions transforming winter (and summer) loads

The only thing that might be scarier than these long-term issues was the New Orleans ghost tour. But unlike the forecasting issues, ghosts aren’t real (at least, that’s what they tell us).

I hope to see everyone next year in Savannah, Georgia on April 8-11, 2025. Submit your abstracts to forecasting@itron.com.