Transform FERC-714 load forecast table

[zaneselvans]

Transform the existing FERC-714 raw planning area demand forecast table into a new core asset.

With the development environment set up and the raw_ferc714 asset group materialized, you should be able to access the raw data in a notebook with:

from pudl.etl import defs
from dagster import AssetKey
raw_forecast = defs.load_asset_value(AssetKey("raw_ferc714__yearly_planning_area_forecast_demand"))

Other relevant tables:

• The FERC-714 respondent IDs: core_ferc714__respondent_id
• Summarized annual FERC-714 demand by respondentout_ferc714__summarized_demand

The PUDL Data Dictionary contains table and column level documentation.

Why would this be useful?

This table contains the data necessary to reproduce and automate the kind of load growth forecast analysis that RMI highlighted in this 2017 post which would be especially useful in the context of casting doubt on these wild load growth forecasts that many utilities are using to justify building tons of new gas capacity. Yes, utilities are forecasting high load growth. But they're always forecasting high load growth. And they are systematically biased toward predicting load growth that is much higher than actually materializes.

After this is done...

Once the old 2006-2020 DBF/CSV derived data for this table has been integrated, then we can look at potentially pulling in the 2021 and later XBRL data for FERC-714 to extend the timeseries to the present.

[seeess1]

I'd like to take this one! @catalyst-cooperative/com-dev

[zaneselvans]

Okay @seeess1 I've assigned it to you. Let us know if anything gets weird in there or doesn't make sense! We usually like to make draft PRs early so others can see how changes are evolving and offer help if something seems to be going in an unexpected direction.

[zaneselvans]

The best place to look for an analogous integration of a FERC-714 asset is probably pudl.transform.ferc714.out_ferc714__hourly_planning_area_demand() -- and that module is where this demand projection asset should also be defined.