When a U.S. power plant's status changes back, PUDL's EIA-860M changelog misses it

Описание и применение

Проблема в том, что в ежемесячном журнале PUDL пропускается изменение статуса генератора, которое возвращается к прежнему значению, что приводит к несоответствию с рабочими книгами EIA 2026. Исправление заключается в сравнении каждой записи только с предыдущей той же генерации.

Задача

PUDL’s monthly changelog of EIA‑860M generator records drops a status change that reverts to a previous value, causing discrepancies with EIA’s own 2026 workbooks.

Результат

The changelog’s omission rule caused 2,395 mismatches in 2026 data; correcting the rule aligns PUDL with EIA’s workbook for all affected generator‑months.

Рабочий процесс

• 1. Identify the rule that drops a record if an earlier record with identical values exists.
• 2. Observe that a status change that reverts to a previous value is omitted.
• 3. Pre‑register a test to compare the rule’s output with EIA’s 2026 workbook.
• 4. Run the simulation for January–August 2026 and confirm 2,395 disagreements are resolved.
• 5. Modify the rule to compare each record only with the previous record of the same generator.
• 6. Re‑run the simulation to verify all disagreements are eliminated.
• 7. Recommend checking PUDL data against EIA’s workbook for the current month until the fix is deployed.

Доказательства

All checks passed and all four of my predictions held: The published changelog has no two records of a generator that are equal in every column but the dates (0 of 224,408 rows), which is what the rule implies.

Источник

In 2,395 of 299,999 generator-months (January to August 2026) EIA's workbook and the changelog disagree on status, planned month or capacity. A simulation of the rule gives the changelog's value in all 2,395.

Источник

The fix is small: compare each record with the previous record of the same generator rather than with its whole history.

Источник