I think you may be conflating energy usage optimization with futures trading. Utilities often use forecasts for different purposes than futures traders, e.g. de

I think you may be conflating energy usage optimization with futures trading. Utilities often use forecasts for different purposes than futures traders, e.g. demand/response. And there are many utilities that aren’t aren’t tiny. In fact, most are larger than they seem (it’s expensive to be in this business), and all of them are looking to optimize heavily. I work in this field in a similar capacity to these guys and there is money to be made legitimately.