Live market data
CAISO wind forecast
CAISO's real-time-dispatch wind forecast against actual output, updated continuously — the near-term view the market schedules against.
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CAISO's real-time-dispatch wind forecast against actual output, updated continuously — the near-term view the market schedules against.
How much wind power will California get?
CAISO wind output peaks at 5,591 MW on Sat, 4 AM, against a low of 1,268 MW — a swing of 4,323 MW across the window. Wind forecast is the heaviest area at 5,591 MW.
Every line above, and who produced it.
What settled — the realized values every forecast here is scored against.
The grid operator's own published forecast for these hours. Source: CAISO.
Each day of the window on its own.
Every hour of the window, shaded by load.
| 0 | 6 | 12 | 18 | |||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Thu, 8/27 |
| Series | Peak (MW) | Peak hour | Low (MW) | Average (MW) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wind forecast | 5,591 | Sat, 4 AM | 1,268 | 3,599 |
| Wind settled (recent) | 4,975 | Thu, 6 PM | 705 | 2,505 |
| Forecast | Avg miss (MW) | Avg miss % | Bias | Hours |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CAISO wind forecast | 2,822 | 288.2% | +2,822 | 2 |
The latest published vintage of each forecast, against what settled. Smaller is better on every column. Bias is signed: positive means the forecast ran high.
| Forecast | Produced by | Method | Horizon |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wind forecast | CAISO | CAISO renewables forecast (RTD) and actual generation, system wind | About 2 days ahead, hourly |
CAISO publishes a point forecast with no confidence interval. This is the day-ahead run, so it reaches about two days and no further; marine layer timing along the coast is where it misses.
CAISO forecasts renewable output for two different decisions: a five-minute real-time dispatch run that barely reaches past the current interval, and an hourly day-ahead run that reaches about two days. This page plots the day-ahead run against what the fleet actually produced. Neither is a revision of the other — they are forecasts made for different purposes.
The fleet concentrates in the mountain passes — Tehachapi and San Gorgonio in the south, Solano and Altamont in the north — where thermal cycling drives an evening-peaking pattern. That timing matters: California wind tends to arrive exactly as solar leaves, softening the evening ramp when it shows up and sharpening it when it does not.
The scorecard below measures the forecast against delivery over the overlapping hours. Wind misses in CAISO matter most in the evening: an over-forecast evening means more gas and higher prices at the ramp, and the accuracy numbers here are the size of that risk.
curl "https://askthegrid.com/api/v1/grid/radar/curves?iso=CAISO&horizon=extended"
Connect your agent to mcp.askthegrid.com and this forecast is a tool call away — the same host Claude and ChatGPT connectors already use.
Roughly six gigawatts of in-state capacity concentrated in the mountain passes, plus imports from the Pacific Northwest and Wyoming. Output is strongest on summer evenings, when pass winds pick up as the desert cools.
This is CAISO's real-time dispatch forecast — about twelve hours at five-minute resolution. It is the operational number the market actually schedules against, not a multi-day outlook, and the provenance above states that horizon rather than implying a longer one.
Because it peaks as solar fades. Wind that shows up during the evening ramp directly displaces the gas fleet at the day's most expensive hours; wind that fails to show makes the ramp steeper and pricier.
Plotted window Aug 27, 10:00 PM PDT → Aug 30, 12:00 AM PDT. Reissued continuously through the operating day; the latest vintage is shown.
| Fri, 8/28 |
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| Sat, 8/29 |
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| Sun, 8/30 |
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Darkest cells are the tightest hours. The window peaks at 5,591 MW on Sat, 4 AM, local to the market.