The California Energy Commission seeks a contractor to provide technical expertise, climate-data processing, and modeling support to improve electricity demand forecasting methods that account for climate change impacts. The project involves incorporating improved climate data, downscaled projections, and advanced modeling techniques into electricity demand forecasting, system planning tools, and resilience analyses aligned with ongoing interagency research efforts.
The scope of work builds on previous efforts in the 2024 IEPR cycle where CEC staff developed downscaled, bias-corrected projections over California at a 3-kilometer by 3-kilometer spatial resolution. The contractor will work with global climate model (GCM) data inputs and Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) models to prepare data for use in California's energy demand forecast. Four additional WRF model runs became available during the 2024 cycle, and analysis suggests significantly warmer climate projections with higher resulting loads compared to initial WRF model runs. The contractor will assist in analyzing impacts on peak demand and comparing heating degree days (HDD) and cooling degree days (CDD) from initial and new WRF runs.
Key dates for this solicitation include: Release Date of February 23, 2026; Questions Deadline of March 4, 2026 at 5:00 pm; Pre-Bid Conference on March 4, 2026 from 1:00 pm to 3:00 pm (remote access only); and Submission Deadline of March 25, 2026 at 11:59 pm. Applications must be submitted using the Grant Solicitation System (GSS).