Case Study: North Carolina Electric Membership Corp. achieves faster forecasts and lower energy costs with SAS

NCEMC decreases forecast generation time from six weeks to just a few hours

The North Carolina Electric Membership Corp. (NCEMC), a group of 26 member-owned cooperatives serving more than 950,000 households, faced growing demand from rapid population and economic growth and needed reliable hourly, daily and long-term (30–40 year) load forecasts to guide procurement and capital decisions. A manual "forecast gap" process converting monthly forecasts into 8,760 hourly points took up to six weeks, limiting scenario analysis and timely decision-making.

NCEMC implemented SAS/OR, SAS Forecast Server and SAS/ETS to integrate load-shape modeling directly into demand forecasts and automate the hourly conversion. Forecast generation dropped from six weeks to a few hours, .5 FTE was redeployed, and the co-op now makes faster, lower-risk procurement and planning decisions that support a more reliable, affordable power portfolio.

North Carolina Electric Membership Corp.

Tom Laing

Director of Market Research