National Gas publishes forecasts of gas demand over a range of timescales to help the industry make efficient decisions in balancing their supply and demand positions.

Gas demand on the network can fluctuate due to a range of factors, from the commercial environment to weather patterns. National Gas takes multiple factors into consideration when forecasting demand. We are financially incentivised on the accuracy of our day-ahead demand forecasts. 

All the forecasts we release are available on our Operational data pages. 

Day-ahead demand forecasts  

We forecast demand at 13:00hrs on a day-ahead basis. We have been subject to an incentive based on the accuracy of this forecast since 2006. The current version of this scheme is in place from 1 April 2021 for five years. The maximum amount we can earn from the scheme is £1.5m, which requires an end-of-year average error of <4.5mcm/day. 
 
The scheme has a target forecast error of 8.35mcm per day, adjusted up to a further 1mcm depending on the extent of additional short-cycle storage injection capability connected to the NTS. The maximum amount we can lose is £1.5m should our average error be approximately 12.2mcm/day.
 
You can view our performance against this incentive by downloading our Supporting Information document. 

Two-to-five day ahead forecasts 

Each day we also publish forecasts for demand two to five days ahead. The current two-to-five-day-ahead incentive scheme was introduced on 1 April 2021. This is a reputational incentive for reporting only, not a financial incentive.